I am new to Ruby on Rails. I was trying to get Ruby on Rails
installed.
I am on Windows XP with access to internet through a proxy. I
installed Ruby and then Gem. I downloaded both as standalone packages
and unzipped them. But when i tried installing Rails through Gem , I
got the below error
"
C:\Program Files\rubygems-1.7.2>gem install rails --version 3.0.1
ERROR: While executing gem ... (Zlib::GzipFile::Error)
not in gzip format "
Before I installing Rails through Gem I had set the environment
variable HTTP_PROXY and I believe it works fine.
I am not able to make this work. I was not able to download a
standalone package of Rails for the version(3.0.1) I am trying to
install.
Any help / workaround would be appreciated.
P.S. I am unable to understand why the installation has to be only
through Gem.
In effect I'd want to install Rails without having an internet
connection. Example I may want to install Rails on a production server
from where I cannot connect to the internet. Is there a way out?
Thanks Bryan. I was aware that Rails 3 is a gem and that it can
be downloaded from http://rubygems.org but I had to download all the
dependent gems in a tree like fashion and whose depth I do not know.
All this through a browser :(( Is this the only solution for what I
am looking for or is there an easier way out.
I know that I may sound a little lazy but I come from J2EE
background where I did not have to do all such things.
It'll resolve the gem dependencies for you, fetch the necessary gem
files, and then store them inside your project.
Of course, this depends on having an internet connection and a working
Rubygems on the machine that you initially run 'bundle package' on.
But after that, any other machine can install the dependencies for
your app (including rails) without hitting rubygems.org.
I am not able to make this work. I was not able to download a
standalone package of Rails for the version(3.0.1) I am trying to
install.
Any help / workaround would be appreciated.
P.S. I am unable to understand why the installation has to be only
through Gem.
The short answer is that the 'rails' package is really just a very
small piece of software that specifies several dependencies (i.e other
software packages that it requires to run: activerecord, actionpack,
etc.). These packages in turn have their own dependencies. As you've
discovered, resolving these dependencies by hand is a pain, so we have
a package manager specifically for Ruby packages, called Rubygems.
If you're not used to package managers, it seems a bit ridiculous at
first -- why can't the software vendor just package up everything
necessary for a particular piece of software into one download? It's a
very common pattern in open source software distribution (e.g. apt-get
in Debian/Ubuntu; pypi for Python) because you might as well make use
of shared libraries if you can (no need to redownload Rack five times
just because five pieces of software need it), plus it absolves
individual software maintainers from having to do all that packaging
work every time they release -- they just specify their dependencies
and they're done.
(Having said that, I believe there are all-in-one Rails packages
available for Windows, but I haven't used any of them for several
years, so I don't know what the status of them is. In any case, you'll
want to get Rubygems working so that you can install other optional
libraries as the needs of your app demand.)
The longer answer is that Ruby's dependence on the Rubygems system is
a little controversial in certain circles (e.g. the Debian
maintainers). There's no reason that Ruby software packages couldn't
be released in a format that also allows for a generic standard
installation straight into /usr/local/lib without relying on Rubygems
for installation. Of course, you still have the problem of dependency
resolution which you'd just have to punt to another system to handle.
So unless you are fascinated by the politics of open source package
management then you can ignore this paragraph.
Chris,
Thanks for the response. I am used to package managers in systems
like Ubuntu and understand the benefits of having package managers.
But If you want to install a software like say Eclipse or Netbeans in
Ubuntu you have the flexibility of doing so either through the
package manager or by just unpacking the tarball into a directory of
your choice. Its about having an alternative if one of it does not
work or just about having the freedom to make a choice.
E.g. : When i am thrown with the below error and since I do not
understand the inner working of Rubygems, I am left with no other
option :
C:\Documents and Settings\AllUsers\Desktop> gem install rails --
version 3.0.1
ERROR: While executing gem ... (Zlib::GzipFile::Error)
not in gzip format
I was able to locate 'all in one' rails package until version 2.2.3
at http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=307 but not the newer versions.
Chris,
Thanks for the response. I am used to package managers in systems
like Ubuntu and understand the benefits of having package managers.
But If you want to install a software like say Eclipse or Netbeans in
Ubuntu you have the flexibility of doing so either through the
package manager or by just unpacking the tarball into a directory of
your choice. Its about having an alternative if one of it does not
work or just about having the freedom to make a choice.
E.g. : When i am thrown with the below error and since I do not
understand the inner working of Rubygems, I am left with no other
option :
C:\Documents and Settings\AllUsers\Desktop> gem install rails --
version 3.0.1
ERROR: While executing gem ... (Zlib::GzipFile::Error)
not in gzip format
I was able to locate 'all in one' rails package until version 2.2.3
at http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=307 but not the newer versions.
Installing Rails on Windows is a slightly different process than installing it on a *nix based OS. For Windows you will want to go here: http://rubyinstaller.org/ and download their installer for it following the guide they have.
The reason you can't find the latest packages for Rails on rubyforge.org is because they are no longer the official package management site. That is now rubygems.org.
As for dependencies, when you install Rails using the command gem install rails or ruby installer if on windows all the dependency libraries will be downloaded and installed for you. After downloading or installing a gem like rails you can always see all the dependencies for that gem by running gem dependencies <gem name>. Keep in mind that you don't have to install the gem to see it's dependencies. You can learn more by going here: http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/10
I appreciate the time members take to answer my question and help me
out. But the answers so far are either not relevant to my question or
did not really help me.
The question is quite simple. I want to install Rails 3 on a
machine(server) where there is no internet connection. I am allowed
only to FTP files to that server. I have installed Ruby and RubyGems
on that server machine by FTPing the installation packages
rubyinstaller-1.9.2-p180.exe and rubygems-1.7.2.tgz. Now I want to
install Rails on the same server where there is no internet
connection. I"ll not be able to use "gem install rails" because there
is no internet connection. Is there a way I can package Rails gem and
all its dependencies (in a machine where I have internet connection)
into a single file to be FTPed to the server (where I dont have
internet) for installation?
But the answer to simple questions is frequently much more complicated...
Is there a way I can package Rails gem and
all its dependencies (in a machine where I have internet connection)
into a single file to be FTPed to the server (where I dont have
internet) for installation?
Yes. You can download all the dependent gems from rubygems.org. Zip
them into one file, and ftp them.
I"ll not be able to use "gem install rails" because there
is no internet connection.
Yes you can... you use "gem install rails -l" to install from local files.
a machine(server) where there is no internet connection.
As an aside, how will this machine receive OS, framework and
application patches?
But the answer to simple questions is frequently much more complicated...
> Is there a way I can package Rails gem and
> all its dependencies (in a machine where I have internet connection)
> into a single file to be FTPed to the server (where I dont have
> internet) for installation?
Yes. You can download all the dependent gems from rubygems.org. Zip
them into one file, and ftp them.
Thanks. When you said I can download all the dependent gems and
zip them, do i have to download them all manually from rubygems.org
using a browser? Or if I choose to download them all through RubyGems
installer whats the path where I can find all the downloaded gems in
the rails installation location? If the Gems are present at a location
where there are lots of other non-Rails Gems, then wouldn't it be very
painful to segregate the Rails Gems?
I wish there was a simpler way like all the Rails Gems packaged
into one bundle available for download. This is in addition to the
existing way of installation. This is about having an additional
option to a valid situation where you can install do an installation
over the internet.
> I"ll not be able to use "gem install rails" because there
> is no internet connection.
Yes you can... you use "gem install rails -l" to install from local files.
Thanks. This has been answered already and I am aware of the -l
option.What I meant above by "gem install rails" is installation
through internet.
> a machine(server) where there is no internet connection.
As an aside, how will this machine receive OS, framework and
application patches?
OS installation / patches are taken care by another team. Even then I
do not see a need to have an internet connection. Patch installations
have always been offline.
But the answer to simple questions is frequently much more complicated…
Is there a way I can package Rails gem and
all its dependencies (in a machine where I have internet connection)
into a single file to be FTPed to the server (where I dont have
internet) for installation?
Yes. You can download all the dependent gems from rubygems.org. Zip
them into one file, and ftp them.
Thanks. When you said I can download all the dependent gems and
zip them, do i have to download them all manually from rubygems.org
using a browser? Or if I choose to download them all through RubyGems
installer whats the path where I can find all the downloaded gems in
the rails installation location?
No you don’t have to download through a browser from rubygems.org. You can download them through the gem installer. You can find the location of where a gem is installed on your system by running the following command:
gem which <name_of_gem>
If the Gems are present at a location
where there are lots of other non-Rails Gems, then wouldn’t it be very
painful to segregate the Rails Gems?
There will be lots of gems installed on your system for different reasons. No it is not painful to segregate them. You can see a list of the gems that Rails has a dependency on by running the following command:
gem dependency rails
The gem installer is your best tool. Take the time to read the manuals which will give you more than enough information on the above questions you have and more.
I wish there was a simpler way like all the Rails Gems packaged
into one bundle available for download. This is in addition to the
existing way of installation. This is about having an additional
option to a valid situation where you can install do an installation
over the internet.
The easier way is the gem installer whether you are connected to the internet or you have a copy of the gem package file you transferred onto your server from another machine. The gem installer does not need the internet to install a gem. You just have to have the gem you want to install. Where are all the packages that you need to install Rails? rubygems.org. And now the argument has come full circle.
> > But the answer to simple questions is frequently much more complicated...
> > > Is there a way I can package Rails gem and
> > > all its dependencies (in a machine where I have internet connection)
> > > into a single file to be FTPed to the server (where I dont have
> > > internet) for installation?
> > Yes. You can download all the dependent gems from rubygems.org. Zip
> > them into one file, and ftp them
Do i have to locate the gem files manually in order to zip them
into a single file? Say i run "gem dependency -r rails" which
returns me a list of say 100 gems. These gems are located in a
directory where there are already 1000 gem files which includes these
Rails and its dependent files also. Do I have to browse through the
file system manually to locate these 100 rails dependent gem
files(from the already existing 1000 files) in order to package/zip
them into a single file? Wouldn't that be painful? Is there an
automated way of packaging the gem files which would take the output
from "gem dependency -r rails" and package them into a single file?
But the answer to simple questions is frequently much more complicated…
Is there a way I can package Rails gem and
all its dependencies (in a machine where I have internet connection)
into a single file to be FTPed to the server (where I dont have
internet) for installation?
Yes. You can download all the dependent gems from rubygems.org. Zip
them into one file, and ftp them
Do i have to locate the gem files manually in order to zip them
into a single file? Say i run “gem dependency -r rails” which
returns me a list of say 100 gems. These gems are located in a
directory where there are already 1000 gem files which includes these
Rails and its dependent files also. Do I have to browse through the
file system manually to locate these 100 rails dependent gem
files(from the already existing 1000 files) in order to package/zip
them into a single file? Wouldn’t that be painful? Is there an
automated way of packaging the gem files which would take the output
from “gem dependency -r rails” and package them into a single file?
Yes you have to locate them. The good news is that 99.9% of the time they are all installed in the same path. This makes your job of finding them easier. Do you have to find them all by hand? No, you’re a programmer. Write a script that parses the output and then gets the packages for you placing them all into one nice zip file. Not everything in life is going to come easy and nicely packaged for you. Sometimes you have to work at it.
