Rails, Apache2 and SUSE

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Getting Rails up and running on Apache2 on SUSE is takes a little work as at the moment Rails is not part of the the SUSE software updates network. This means you must build Rails (and Ruby if using SuSE < 9.3) and the FastCGI development kit from source.

1. First off it you need Ruby 1.8.2 (or greater) to run Rails. If you have a version less than this you will need to compile and install Ruby from source.
Install GCC, make, the C devel, zlib and zlib-devel packages using Yast.
Download the latest version of Ruby from http://www.ruby-lang.org/
Untar the source file to /usr/local/src, compile and install (as root or sudo):

tar -xzf ruby-1.8.3.tar.gz
cd ruby-1.8.3
./configure
make
make test
make install

Once completed this will set Ruby up on your system (by default into /usr/local/bin). Create a link in /usr/bin to ruby.

ln -s /usr/local/bin/ruby /usr/bin/ruby

2. Install gems (a ruby package manager). Download gems from http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubygems/
Untar the source code into /usr/local/src, compile and install (as root or sudo):

tar -xzf rubygems-0.8.11.tgz
cd rubygems-0.8.11
./configure
make
make install

This will install gems into /usr/local/bin. Create a link in /usr/bin

ln -s /usr/local/bin/gem /usr/bin/gem

3. With ruby and gems installed install Rails:

gem install rails --include-dependencies

4. With Rails installed create a test project and test the Rails WebBrick server.

5. Using Yast install the mod_fastcgi package for integrating Rails into Apache2.

6. From http://www.fastcgi.com/ download the FastCGI development package. Untar the source into /usr/local/src and compile:

tar -xzf fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz
cd fcgi-2.4.0
./configure
make install

7. Now install the fcgi component for ruby using gem.

gem install fcgi -- --with-fcgi-dir=/usr/local/

8. Edit /etc/sysconfig/apache2 and in the modules section add fastcgi to the list of modules loaded by Apache when it starts.

9. Create a new virtualhost in Apache for your Rails application. Use the following template as an example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName rails.test.domain
        AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi
        AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
        DocumentRoot /srv/www/rails/RailsTestProject/public
        <Directory /srv/www/rails/RailsTestProject/public>
                RewriteEngine On
                RewriteRule ^$ index.html [QSA]
                RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [QSA]
                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
                RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
                ErrorDocument 500 "<h2>Application error</h2>Rails application failed to start properly"
                Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride all
                Allow from all
           Order allow,deny
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

10. Restart Apache and test the virtual host. Hopefully fastcgi should be working with Rails to display your new application.