Installing nginx with passenger and RVM
In this post I am going to tell you how to install the nginx server with passenger to host rails applications
System Configurations
- OS: Ubuntu 11.10
- Ruby: 1.8.7
I am using RVM for ruby version management
Don’t install nginx with sudo apt-get install nginx command, I face lot of problems with it.. First install Ruby 1.8.7 with RVM Next install passenger which ever version you want, I prefer latest.
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gem install passenger
The above command will install passenger for your system, now we can install either apache2 or nginx as HTTP servers. I am installing nginx here.
After installing passenger you need to run the following command
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rvmsudo passenger-install-nginx-module
This is important step while installing, don’t run above command with sudo or without rvmsudo it won’t work as expected.
The script will ask you if you want a default installation or a custom/advanced on. I just did the default (option 1).
The script downloads and compiles nginx. It will ask you where you want it installed. I suggest /usr/local/nginx.
Don’t just say /usr/local as that will create conf, html and logs directory right in /usr/local. You really want these in a nginx specific directory.
All being well the compilation and installation will go smoothly and your fresh installation of nginx will be modified for use with passenger.
If I remember the installation correctly it actually fires up nginx and leaves it running. Check that with ps ax | grep nginx
Go to your browser. http://localhost should give a ‘welcome to nginx’ page. Look in /usr/local/nginx/logs/ for logging output.
ConfigurationI set up a symlink in /usr/local/sbin to the nginx binary so that it can be found in my regular PATH
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sudo ln -s /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx /usr/local/sbin/nginx
You start nginx with ‘sudo nginx’ and shut it down with sudo killall nginx It needs to be run via sudo.
Configuring nginx is done in /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf and if you are used to Apache config files this will be a breath of fresh air. The main changes I made from the default was to set myself as the user and set the worker_processes to 2. To set up a Rails application simply add a server block like this:
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server {
listen 80;
server_name myapp.rvg.com;
root /Users/rvg/projects/test/public;
passenger_enabled on;
rails_env development;
}
Be sure to set the rails_env unless you are in production (the default) otherwise it will not work. Restart nginx and with any luck you’ll be able to access your application. I made a few missteps doing my installation - such as thinking I needed to install nginx myself - but overall this went very smoothly.