Setting up Rails app on Apache with passenger - Rails doesn't seem to load

Question

I am trying to set up Rails on a Ubuntu instance by following along with documentation such as https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RubyOnRails. I am trying to set up the app from the Rails Getting Started page here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html.

What I have done so far:

• Installation of Ruby/RubyGems/Rails through RVM and GEM (this installed Ruby 1.9.2 and Rails 3.0.7)
• Installation of the mysql and mysql2 module (latter which didn't work)
• Creation of rails app (blog app as tutorial is instructing)
• Sym linking of /home/me/www/blog/public/ from /var/www/blog/
• Creation of DB through rake
• Installation of passenger module for Rails execution in Apache
• Running of passenger-install-apache2-module to configure Apache
• Deletion of public.html file from public/ rails app folder so that my controller/view can fire
• Configuration of sites-available files for virtual hosts
• Configuration of Rails routing

I believe it is the last two steps that are tripping me up, partly due to lack of familiarity with Apache and Rails (I am new to both).

In my virtual host file I am trying to point to the blog public dir in /var/www/blog. For my Rails route I have root :to => "home#index" as instructed.

When I browse to the http:// url I should normally be seeing my "Hello, Rails!" page per section 4.3 of the Getting Started guide, however all I see is the directory listing from Apache. Static pages work but not Rails processing.

At this point I am unclear if the passenger module is even doing anything or where to look for any evidence of what is happening. I tried various things like running the Rails app off a different virtual host called "blog" at http:///blog and the routing worked (static pages and all) but no Rails as above.

Update: after playing around some more, I now get a new error message (404):

Not Found

The requested URL /dispatch.cgi was not found on this server.

I have since determined that this cgi 404 was caused by a rewrite rule I had added to .htaccess from guidance from the help.ubuntu.com page I pointed out above. Looks like it wasn't necessary or applied to an older version of Rails. The inconsistencies in instructions when looking up help online is disorienting! Removing the file leaves me with the previous problem though.

Here's the entry in the Apache log that I believe correlates with the first error. Although I am no longer getting this error it seems, may be related to something else I was trying before...

[Fri May 27 22:49:41 2011] [notice] Apache/2.2.16 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.3.3-1ubuntu9 with Suhosin-Patch Phusion_Passenger/3.0.7 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri May 27 22:51:18 2011] [error] [client 192.168.1.141] File does not exist: /var/www/blog/rails, referer: http://192.168.1.138/blog/

Here's the most recent entry with the 404 on the cgi thing:

[Sat May 28 08:01:18 2011] [error] [client 192.168.1.141] File does not exist: /var/www/blog/dispatch.cgi

What could I be missing? Thanks!

---

Additional details as requested. Apache sites file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/blog/
    RailsEnv development

        # <Directory />
        #       Options FollowSymLinks
        #       AllowOverride None
        # </Directory>

        <Directory "/var/www/blog/">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks -MultiViews +ExecCGI
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        # AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

Another update: I was able to get it working, finally, by using a top level DocumentRoot (/var/www) and basing my Rails app off that using RailsBaseURI. This maps to the "Deploying to a sub URI" section of the Phusion Passenger instructions. It is used as http:///blog which is not really what I wanted to get, but it's kind of irrelevant as I am using this just to learn Rails in a virtual. I will need to go and work on getting it working as a top level app again sometime later. Here's my current (final) VirtualHost file for reference:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/
        RailsEnv development

        <Directory /var/www/>
          Options FollowSymLinks
          AllowOverride None
        </Directory>

    RailsBaseURI /blog
        <Directory /var/www/blog/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks -MultiViews +ExecCGI
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
                # AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
        <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

Deploying a Ruby on Rails application

Suppose you have a Ruby on Rails application in /webapps/mycook, and you own the domain www.mycook.com. You can either deploy your application to the virtual host’s root (i.e. the application will be accessible from the root URL, http://www.mycook.com/), or in a sub URI (i.e. the application will be accessible from a sub URL, such as http://www.mycook.com/railsapplication).

Deploying to a virtual host’s root

Add a virtual host entry to your Apache configuration file. Make sure that the following conditions are met:

• The virtual host’s document root must point to your Ruby on Rails application’s public folder.
• The Apache per-directory permissions must allow access to this folder.
• MultiViews must be disabled for this folder.

For example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.mycook.com
    DocumentRoot /webapps/mycook/public
    <Directory /webapps/mycook/public>
        Allow from all
        Options -MultiViews
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

You may also need to tweak your file/folder permissions. Make sure that the following folders are readable and executable by Apache:

• this public folder.
• the application’s config folder.
• all parent folders. That is, /webapps/mycook and /webapps must also be readable and executable by Apache.

Then restart Apache. The application has now been deployed.

Read the whole docs here