Ruby on Rails Support

[GatorShashank]

Ruby On Rails Support

Dear Clients,

We are happy to announce that Hostgator servers now support Ruby on Rails. This applies for all shared and reseller servers. The following is a brief overview on how you can use RoR with our servers.

Update Version Report:
Ruby Version : ruby 1.8.6 (2008-03-03 patchlevel 114) [i686-linux]
Gem Version : 1.0.1
Rails Version : Rails 2.0.2

Our CTO, David Collins and myself have selected the following Gems to be preinstalled with the Ruby installations. Custom gems are avaliable on a per request basis. If you need an additional gem installed, please create a support ticket.

actionmailer
Service layer for easy email delivery and testing.

actionpack
Web-flow and rendering framework putting the VC in MVC.

actionwebservice
Web service support for Action Pack.

activerecord
Implements the ActiveRecord pattern for ORM.

activesupport
Support and utility classes used by the Rails framework.

BlueCloth
BlueCloth is a Ruby implementation of Markdown, a text-to-HTML
conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using
an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to
structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

builder
Builders for MarkUp.

daemons
A toolkit to create and control daemons in different ways

feedtools
Parsing, generation, and caching system for xml news feeds.

gem_plugin
A plugin system based only on rubygems that uses dependencies only

gnuplot
Utility library to aid in interacting with gnuplot

htmltools
This is a Ruby library for building trees representing HTML
structure.

mongrel
A small fast HTTP library and server that runs Rails, Camping, and
Nitro apps.

mysql
MySQL/Ruby provides the same functions for Ruby programs that the
MySQL C API provides for C programs.

payment
Payment is used to process credit cards and electronic cash through
merchant accounts.

rails
Web-application framework with template engine, control-flow layer,
and ORM.

rake
Ruby based make-like utility.

sources
This package provides download sources for remote gem installation

tidy
Ruby interface to HTML Tidy Library Project

uuidtools
Generation of UUIDs.

xml-simple
A very simple API for XML processing.

We are offering jailed SSH access on all our servers now. You can get SSH enabled for your account if you want to deploy and test Rails applications rapidly. The procedure to get SSH access is simple. You just need to email support@hostgator.com with your account information and a scanned copy of any photo identification document you have for authentication. We will enable jailed SSH access for you on proper verification of the account information. Following are the steps you can perform to deploy a demo Rail app and test its working on your account.



1. Login to your SSH using your own account.
2. Once logged in make sure you are in your /home/username folder using the “pwd” command.
It should show the output like this :

            cpaneluser@server [~]# pwd
            /home/cpaneluser

3. Then run the following commands to generate a demo rail app and its controller.

            cpaneluser@server [~]# rails /home/cpaneluser/demoapp
            cpaneluser@server [~]# cd demoapp
            cpaneluser@server [~]# ruby script/generate controller test

4. Now create a symlink in public_html so that the app is viewable via the web.

            cpaneluser@server [~]# cd ../public_html
            cpaneluser@server [~]# ln –s ../demoapp/public rails

5. Before you test the Rails page, there is one more modification you need to make.

            cpaneluser@server [~]# cd ../demoapp/public
            cpaneluser@server [~]# pico .htaccess

Locate the line where it has the code like below :

             RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]

Change that code to :

             RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.cgi [QSA,L]

And save the file.

You can then visit http://yourdomain.com/rails/ and you should see a “Welcome Aboard” page which confirms successful working of your rail app. You can deploy any other standard Rail applications as well. Most of them should work well with the preinstalled Gems we have. We have also enabled subversion (SVN) support on all of our servers which would facilitate fetching and installation of ruby scripts. If you have any questions/issues, please email support@hostgator.com.

[zzz]

Any tips for getting a rails application running on hostgator that was developed locally.

So I have a ruby on rails application on my local computer and want to upload it and host it on hostgator.

I was able to successfully creat a rails application from the jailshell access. But i'm having issues getting a locally developed app running.
I can get it to show the "welcome aboard" page. When I try to navigate to any pages or controller/views I get an error that "the page isnt redirecting properly"

the log/development.log file file shows 302 messages showing the address in my address bar so it is loading as a static html page from what i see.

[slapshotw]

Thank you, thank you, thank you-- and if I didn't say it enough-- thank you!

Originally Posted by GatorShashank

We have also enabled subversion (SVN) support on all of our servers

And again for that, THANK YOU!

[Serra]

Ruby is ok, I'm not really a fan, but I did notice that you are offering Jailed shell as well!!! That is totally cool!

Finally, HostGator has come up with something totally cool!

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by Serra

Ruby is ok, I'm not really a fan

Rails has cut the production time (and hence budget) on some of my recent projects by 50-75%. It's really something you should check out more in depth if you haven't.

And svn hosting is great as well.

[ZenCocoon]

hello,

I may like to know if you also propose some FastCGI support or even better some mongrel/lighttpd one ?

This aside, a BIG thank you for this initiative.
--
Sébastien Grosjean - ZenCocoon

[vtrain]

http://www.magicangel.net/temp/royalcroc-back.jpghttp://67.18.96.42/%7Edavec/g1.jpg

(Give me my Rails !!)

Originally Posted by Serra

Ruby is ok, I'm not really a fan, but I did notice that you are offering Jailed shell as well!!! That is totally cool!

Finally, HostGator has come up with something totally cool!

I aggree this can help a lot and turn heavy tasks and very simples tasks.
Gratz HG !

Vtrain

[kmaw]

Originally Posted by vtrain

I aggree this can help a lot and turn heavy tasks and very simples tasks.
Gratz HG !

Vtrain

Cool.. like what?

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by kmaw

Cool.. like what?

If I were you I'd go to the rails site and read up about some things people are doing. Sites I've done recently that tend to involve a LOT of database work and dynamic content tend to benefit the most.

http://rubyonrails.org/

-Matt

[leonsmith]

I guess I have been around too long. I see Ruby as a major step backward in terms of software development.

Come on this is the twenty first century and people are still using command line args, make utilities, relational databases, etc. ?

As far as productivity goes, a lot of that is because they let a database schema drive automated access code generation. Now there's a feature that was really cool about twenty years ago.

The more things change the more they stay the same...

[PsionBlue]

Thanks for this!!!!

I was about to leave because you didn't support this. I am switching all me development to RoR and it has saved me tons-o-time.

Thanks!



ps:I thought fastcgi was the way to go with rails?

[vtrain]

Originally Posted by kmaw

Cool.. like what?

Like upgrading any script using the patch approach (just one of many examples).

patch -cl -d [DIRECTORY] -p1 < [PATCH NAME]

That a major breakthrough in speed and mess. Only shell access allows it to. You may say you can have a home server and do it there and it's true but you still have to ftp, use cpanel file manager to unpack, etc.

So I do thing that shell access can turn heavy tasks and very simples tasks.

Vtrain

[zzz]

Is it just me or are no ruby on rails applications working? I had some applications running fine with symbolic links but now they are all 404 errors.
I tried creating a new rails app(just like the one in the first post) to test and it didnt work either.

[slapshotw]

I have the welcome page up and running but haven't tested anything besides that yet.

[aubreyisland]

Does anyone know how to just run ruby? I tried .rhtml, didn't work?

[ZenCocoon]

The default extention for ruby is .rb

The .rhtml is an extention for Ruby included in HTML. If you like to use .rhtml without rails here is the procedure :

First you want to ssh into the root dir that you want to server .rhtml files from and create a .htaccess with the following contents:

RewriteEngine Off
Options +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI
AddHandler rubypage .rhtml
Action rubypage /cgi-bin/erb.cgi
DirectoryIndex index.rhtml index.html index.htm

next..

mkdir cgi-bin
vim cgi-bin/erb.cgi

and here’s what goes in erb.cgi:

#!/usr/local/bin/ruby
require 'time'
require 'erb'
include ERB::Util

time = Time.now.httpdate

HEADERS = <<-EOF
Date: #{ time }
Server: #{ ENV['SERVER_SOFTWARE'] }
Last-Modified: #{ time }
Content-Type: text/html

EOF

begin

path = nil
if (ENV['PATH_TRANSLATED'])
path = ENV['PATH_TRANSLATED']
else
file_path = ENV['REDIRECT_URL'].include?(File.basename(__FILE__)) ? ENV['SCRIPT_URL'] : ENV['REDIRECT_URL']
path = File.expand_path(ENV['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] + '/' + file_path)
raise "Attempt to access invalid path: #{path}" unless path.index(ENV['DOCUMENT_ROOT']) == 0
end
erb = File.open(path) { |f| ERB.new(f.read) }
print HEADERS + erb.result(binding)

rescue Exception

print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n"

# what the customer sees
print "<h1>Page Not Found</h1>"

# modify message variables
ENV['SERVER_ADMIN'] = "admin@yourdomain.com"

# email message
MESSAGE = "
From: Erb <admin@yourdomain.com>
To: You <you@yourdomain.com>
Subject: Error on YourDomain.com

****Script Error****
#{ $! }

****Backtrace****
#{$!.backtrace.join("\n")}

****Environment****
#{ENV.keys.map { |key| key + ' = ' + ENV[key] + "\n"} }"

# send the message
require "net/smtp"
Net::SMTP.start('localhost', 25, 'yourdomain.com', 'admin+yourdomain.com', 'yourPassword', :login) do |smtp|
smtp.send_message MESSAGE, 'admin@yourdomain.com', 'you@yourdomain.com'
end

end

Make sure that the permissions on erb.cgi are 755 or it will not work. Not only does this script serve up your .rhtml pages, but it will notify you if there is a problem.
If you want to use a .rhtml page for your 404 errors just add one more line to your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.rhtml

Hope this help ;-)

[aubreyisland]

I really appriciate your help- I saw this on some documentation somewhere, did you actually applicate this? I trust you did, but wanted to ask.

Yeah, I just want to learn ruby for a few days, once I wrap my mind around it-- check out rails....

[ZenCocoon]

I didn't use this code as I didn't need it but I took it from the documentation of my RubyOnRails Hosting company, I'm not sure it will be really appreciate to name it right here.

Anyway, I trust this code but as usual when you reuse some code like that you got to understand by yourself how safe it is and if it really feet your need.

On my idea you can directly go to Rails and you will learn Ruby in same time. I did that on my side and think that worked pretty well ;-)

Cheers

[harald.walker]

Any plans to upgrade to Rails 1.2.1 shortly? I still have to finish my first Rails app and would prefer to target 1.2.1 directly.

[ZenCocoon]

No problem, even if they don't update the rails gem you can still use rails 1.2.1 for your application by freezing rails.

To do it use the following rake task:

rake rails:freeze:edge # Lock to latest Edge Rails or a specific revision with REVISION=X (ex: REVISION=4021) or a tag with TAG=Y (ex: TAG=rel_1-1-0)

You can find more about rake tasks on http://www.rubyonrailsblog.com/artic...asks-reference

Hope this help ;-)
--
Sébastien Grosjean - ZenCocoon
http://www.zencocoon.com -- My company website
http://seb.box.re -- Personal blog mainly based on rails thoughts
http://www.villasthalassa.com -- Wonderful sea side villas to rent in Greece
http://www.lefkadagreece.eu -- Find the land of your dreams, on a Greek island

[Serra]

I'm having a problem using this system.

I have set it up and I created a controller called items in a directory called menu.

Then I create a symbolic link in /public_html/ called menu.

When I browse it at home, it works fine in Windows. I can use it at 127.0.0.1:3000/menu

When I use it on the web, I go to domain.com/menu, I see the welcome screen. But when I try to access items, it gets an error. I see the items controller under /app/controllers, but how do I access it? /menu/items doesn't work...

Where am I going wrong?

[ZenCocoon]

I guess it may come from the dispatch.cgi file that is not the correct one.

To fix this issue, go in your menu folder (where is located your application) and run

rails .

Then accept to overwrite all dispatch.* files ( but only them, other wise you may can loose your work )

Once this done, check that your public/.htaccess file (from your application) is properly made, as sayed at the top of this thread.

I think you will also have to include the following lines in your ~/public_html/.htaccess file

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/your-subdomain$
RewriteRule .* http://you-subdomain.your-domain.your-domain-extention [R=301,L]

This info comes from my personal use on a different host company but runing cpanel as weel so I guess the same principal using rails.
Anyway I don't see any risk in this particular code.

Let us know if that worked for you ;-)
Hope this help,

[dieffe]

Originally Posted by zzz

Any tips for getting a rails application running on hostgator that was developed locally.

So I have a ruby on rails application on my local computer and want to upload it and host it on hostgator.

I was able to successfully creat a rails application from the jailshell access. But i'm having issues getting a locally developed app running.
I can get it to show the "welcome aboard" page. When I try to navigate to any pages or controller/views I get an error that "the page isnt redirecting properly"

the log/development.log file file shows 302 messages showing the address in my address bar so it is loading as a static html page from what i see.

I have the same problem, i always get the: Rails application failed to start properly" message. My idea is that my application isnt relying on any controller i developed locally and uploaded via ftp but only working in the folder the rails command executed via shell created.
Do i need to edit the .htaccess?
Do i need to use svn? (which i cant atm)

[filiph]

Ok, this may be obvious to the Unix veterans out there, but I struggled with it, so I thought maybe someone could find this useful.

Excuse my lousy English, I'm a non-native speaker.

How to get Ruby on Rails running at the root of the domain

Ok so GatorShashank's post tells you how to run a Ruby on Rails app in a subdirectory of your doman, i.e. www.mydomain.com/myapp. But what if you want to run it at the "root", www.mydomain.com? Puzzled? Well fortunately you have your Czecho friendo here to help you.

First, follow everything on GatorShashank's post so that your app is running in a subdirectory, let's say www.mydomain.com/myapp/. You may find out that you actually don't need to do the last step (rewriting .fcgi to .cgi), because somehow it is automagically done for you (at least for me it was).

Also note that when you're done, navigating to www.mydomain.com/myapp still might throw an 400 Error: Bad Request. Why? Because you're trying to navigate to a file. What you want is to navigate to a directory. Solution: go to www.mydomain.com/myapp/ instead (note the trailing slash).

Now that we have our app running, we need to tell the Apache server to run it when the user navigates to www.mydomain.com. Obvious? No. Easy? Yes!

Create (or edit if it already exists) a ".htaccess" file in your /public_html/ directory. Now insert the following four [update]five[/update] lines:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/cpanel/.*
RewriteCond  %{HTTP_HOST}  ^www\.mydomain\.com [OR]
RewriteCond  %{HTTP_HOST}  ^mydomain\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /myapp/$1 [L,QSA]

Note that:

1. If the .htaccess file already exists, paste these lines below the last existing record (safest method).
2. You don't need to use the first line if it already exists anywhere above the inserted text.
3. You need to substitute mydomain with your actual domain name and myapp with the name of the symlink you created for your Ruby on Rails app.
4. The whole thing reads: Turn on the Rewrite engine. If the user navigates to any address starting with http://www.mydomain.com/ or http://mydomain.com/ (i.e. mydomain.com/something/), act as if he navigated to an address starting with http://www.mydomain.com/myapp/ (i.e. mydomain.com/myapp/something/), but don't show it in the address bar.
5. After this has been done, nothing in your /public_html/ shows on the Internet. If you i.e. have index.php file there, and you navigate to www.mydomain.com/index.php, the server tries to find www.mydomain.com/myapp/index.php (which probably doesn't exist). Fortunately, though, your Added Domains still work.
6. You can disable these rules anytime without deleting them from the .htaccess. All you need to do is write a # (hash) at the beginning of each line.
7. UPDATE:The second line is there if you want the www.mydomain.com/cpanel page to still work. Use similar rules to make other subdirectories available.
8. UPDATE: This may work for some pages, but it's much safer to make a subdomain (eg. railsapp.mydomain.com) and then redirecting your www.mydomain.com traffic there. How to make a rails subdomain? Easy. Make the new subdomain (let's say 'railsapp' in cpanel, then go to your public_html/ directory ('cd ~/public_html'), delete the subdomain directory that cpanel created ('rm -r railsapp') and make a symlink of the same name towards your rails application ('ln -s ../path/to/your/rails/app/public ./railsapp'). Done.

That's it! Enjoy.

-- Filip, reklama.visible.cz

[dieffe]

Thanks filiph,
i must admit i started RoR 1 months ago and with my Classic ASP and Win hosting knowledge all this new stuff is....overwelming.

My problem seems to be that i cant get my controllers running even in the domain/myapp/. i can browse the index page but not the controller. If i check via console the application starting ruby script/console from the folder /<user>/home/appFolder i can access controllers and models but not from the www.mydomain.com/railsApp where railsApp is the name in ln command.

Thanks again.