Setting up Ruby on Rails at Bluehost
I recently hosted my Ruby on Rails (ROR) application at Bluehost and I am laying out a step by step approach. I have tried to keep it as simple as I can.
The following steps are for setting up ROR application in a shared hosting environment at Bluehost. Bluehost does not let you use mongrel in a shared hosting as this requires running the server at a different port (12010 etc..). In order to use mongrel you need to have a dedicated IP. In a shared hosting environment you will need to enable FastCGI in your web server ( Apache). Also the following example uses an Add on Domain .
1) SSH Access: Call up or email bluehost to give you SSH access ( bluehost instructions).
2) Addon Domain: Go to Domain Manager in CPanel and Add on a domain. Lets say you have a site www.example.com and you want to host another domain ( www.myrubyapp.com) in the same hosting plan. You can go to the CPanel and select CPanel->Domains->Addon Domains. It will take you to the Domain Manager and let you add another domain. You will first need to set the domain name servers for the domain you want to add to “ns1.bluehost.com” and “ns2.bluehost.com“. It will let you map your new domain to a subdirectory in “/public_html”. For e.g. http://www.myrubyapp.com could map to “/public_html/myrubyapp” directory.
3)Create Rails App: You can either do this from SSH or from CPanel. Select Cpanel->Software Services->Ruby on Rails. Give the application name e.g. “myrubyapp“, set the application path “/railapps/myrubyapp“, select “production” environment and click on create. This will create your application.
4) Create Symbolic Link: You will need SSH access to accomplish this. Once you have SSH access then select Cpanel->Security->SSH Access and log in using your username and password (bluehost instructions). Next we need to map the ~/public_html/myrubyapp directory to /home/<username>/railapps/myrubyapp directory. Before that we need to delete the ~/public-html/myrubbyapp directory. Run the following command:
- cd ~/public_html
- rm -rf myrubyapp
- ln -s /home/<username>/railapps/myrubyapp/public myrubyapp
5) Verify Ruby on Rails Welcome Page: If all the steps were executed correctly you should see the Ruby on Rails welcome page by going to http://www.myrubyapp.com. This is going to display the index.html page located in /home/<username>/railapps/myrubyapp/public directory.
6) FASTCGI Setup (.htaccess): In order to invoke your ruby application via Apache you need to enable/configure FASTCGI for apache. This is achieved by creating a .htaccess file in /home/<username>/railapps/myrubyapp/public and adding the following entries:
# General Apache options
AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
#Options +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI
# If you don't want Rails to look in certain directories,
# use the following rewrite rules so that Apache won't rewrite certain requests
#
# Example:
# RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/notrails.*
# RewriteRule .* - [L]
# Redirect all requests not available on the filesystem to Rails
# By default the cgi dispatcher is used which is very slow
#
# For better performance replace the dispatcher with the fastcgi one
#
# Example:
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
RewriteEngine On
# If your Rails application is accessed via an Alias directive,
# then you MUST also set the RewriteBase in this htaccess file.
#
# Example:
# Alias /myrailsapp /path/to/myrailsapp/public
# RewriteBase /myrailsapp
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^$ index.html [QSA]
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [QSA]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
# In case Rails experiences terminal errors
# Instead of displaying this message you can supply a file here which will be rendered instead
#
# Example:
# ErrorDocument 500 /500.html
ErrorDocument 500 "<h2>Application error</h2>Rails application failed to start properly"
7) Setup the database: Using CPanel MySQL wizzard create a database, username and password. Lets say you enter myrubyapp (database name) admin ( database user) and admin123 ( database password). Bluehost will prefix your database and database username with your domain username “<username>_”. The database will be <username>_myrubyapp and db user will be <username>_admin. Give the database user full privileges. Update the database.yml file in your ruby applicationwith correct information. If you are using production environment then uncomment the following # ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= ‘production’ in your environment.rb file in your app config directory.
8) Map the Root: The domain is currently pointing to the Ruby on Rails welcome page. You will need to point it to your app. Delete or rename the index.html page. Lets say the index page of your application should point to a controller resource “myrubyappresource“ and the action is “show“. The following entry needs to be entered in your routes.rb file.
- map.root :controller=>’myrubyappresource’, :action=>’show’
9) Fire up the application: If all was configured properly you should be able to see you application now at http://www.myrubyapp.com.
10) Deploying updates: When you viewed your app url in a browser, the web server ( apache) started up a process for fastcgi. You can view the process via CPanel->Advanced->Process Manager. Everytime you update your application you will need to kill this process to make the updates visible to the users.
References: http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/kb/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=232
I had to struggle through multiple issues to get my app to work with Bluehost. The intent of this article is to make it easy for folks deploying their ruby app with Bluehost for the first time. Hope this helped. If you have any questions please feel free to ping me. So long..
Tags: .htaccess, addon domain.addon, bluehost, database.yml, domains, FastCFI, hosting, linkedin, mysql, ror, ruby on rails, SSH
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August 1st, 2010 at 11:40 pm
hi,
I am trying to install redmine.org on Bluehost. I was following redmine installation guide and I can access the redmine application for withing bluehost itself but not from outside. I guesss it is about setting up .htaccess and/or fcgi. But I do not know how to solve that. I tried to contact BH support :-(
Any suggestions?
Thank you
Radek
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December 31st, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Hi, I did the same thing as you did, but now I want to change my ruby app to become the mail domain.
Do you know how I need to setup my ruby files inside the public_html folder in order to work?
I have current a main domain (e.g. maindomain.com), and my ruby app’s domain is ruby_subdomain.com
and ruby_subdomain/public is linked to public_html/ruby_subdomain.
If now I swap the two domain so the ruby_subdomain becomes the main domain, do I need to move all the ruby files into the public_html folder?
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