Deploying a Rails application on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS with Phusion Passenger and SQL Server 2005

This article will provide step by step instructions for preparing and then deploying a Rails application on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS that uses Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Install Ruby

sudo apt-get install ruby-full build-essential

Install Apache 2

sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-prefork-dev

Install Ruby Gems

Do not install Ruby Gems from Apt. This will screw up your Gems repository as Apt and Gems will both want to manage it. Download the latest Gems package from http://rubyforge.org. At the time of this writing the latest version is 1.3. Version 1.3 is also the version that I used.

wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/43985/rubygems-1.3.0.tgz 
tar xzvf rubygems-1.3.0.tgz 
cd rubygems-1.3.0 
sudo ruby setup.rb 
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem sudo gem update --system

Install Rails

Make sure to install the proper version. You may need to pass the "--version" flag.

sudo gem install rails

Install Phusion Passenger

This allows us to deploy Rails application with as much simplicity as it takes to deploy a PHP application. This we can avoid using Mongrel/Proxy Balancing/(Apache|Lighttpd|Nginx).

sudo gem install passenger sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

Next add the following to your /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file:

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3 PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8`

Install Ruby/ODBC/SQLServer2005 Compatibility

In /etc/profile add the following:

export ODBCINI=/etc/odbc.ini export ODBCSYSINI=/etc export FREETDSCONF=/etc/freetds/freetds.conf

Make sure you restart your shell after this!

Now install UnixODBC:

sudo apt-get install unixodbc 
sudo apt-get install unixodbc-dev 
sudo apt-get install tdsodbc

Now install FreeTDS (stable) from source. The FreeTDS in the Apt repository is version 0.63 and will not work with SQL Server 2005. At the time of this writing, the current stable version is 0.82.

wget ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/freetds/stable/freetds-stable.tgz 
cd freetds-stable 
./configure 
make sudo make install

Edit /etc/freetds/freetds.conf and add the following:[YOUR_DB_DEFINITION_NAME] host = 172.24.40.100 port = 1433 tds version = 8.0

Test it with the following:

sqsh -S YOUR_DB_DEFINITION_NAME -U USERNAME -P PASSWORD

Once actually logged in, you can run some SQL and verify the results. Make sure to type “go” after each command and also make sure to “use” the right database.

Now edit /etc/odbc.ini and add the following:

[YOUR_DB_DEFINITION_NAME] 
Driver = FreeTDS Description     
= ODBC connection via FreeTDS Trace           
= No Servername      
= YOUR_DB_DEFINITION_NAME Database        
= YOUR_ACTUAL_DB_NAME

Edit /etc/odbcinst.ini and add the following:

[FreeTDS] Description     = TDS driver (Sybase/Microsoft SQL) Driver          = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsodbc.so Setup           = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsS.so CPTimeout       = CPReuse         = FileUsage       = 1

Now test it….

isql YOUR_DB_DEFINITION_NAME USERNAME PASSWORD

Install Ruby ODBC:

wget http://www.ch-werner.de/rubyodbc/ruby-odbc-0.9995.tar.gz 
tar zvxf ruby-odbc-0.9995.tar.gz 
cd ruby-odbc-0.9995/ 
ruby extconf.rb 
make 
sudo make install

Install ActiveRecord ODBC Adapter

sudo gem install activerecord-odbc-adapter

Edit your database.yml in your application and configure it like…

development: adapter: odbc dsn: YOUR_DB_DEFINITION_NAME username: USERNAME password: PASSWORD

Now dump your Rails app in /var/www/yourrailsapp and add a new Apache Virtual Host as seen in the previous post. Configure the virtual host DocumentRoot to point to the public directory in Apache2. Do not forget to change ownership of your rails app to www-data. (chown -R www-data:www-data yourrailsapp) That’s all there is too it! Now you can deploy a number of Rails apps in Apache with little trouble!

If you made it this far, you should follow me on Twitter.

-JP

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