Home/ Questions/Q 8506287
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-11T02:33:09+00:00

I’m installing the Ruby Nokogiri gem and finding the error below. How to diagnose

  • 0

I’m installing the Ruby Nokogiri gem and finding the error below.

How to diagnose this and solve it?

# gem install nokogiri
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing nokogiri:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
...
/opt/ruby/1.9.3-p194/bin/ruby extconf.rb
checking for libxml/parser.h... *** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.
...
/opt/ruby/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:381:in `try_do': 
The compiler failed to generate an executable file. (RuntimeError)
You have to install development tools first.
from /opt/ruby/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:506:in `try_cpp'
...
Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    To diagnose and solve, here’s what worked for me.

    To find out what failed, go to your ruby gems directory.

    For example:

    $ cd <MY RUBY DIRECTORY>/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems

    If you don’t know your gem directory, try this:

    $ echo $GEM_HOME
/opt/gems/2.0.0
$ cd /opt/gems/2.0.0/gems

    What version of nokogiri am I installing?

    $ ls -ladg nokogiri-*
nokogiri-1.5.5

    Go to the installer directory:

    $ cd nokogiri-1.5.5/ext/nokogiri

    Try installing manually:

    $ ruby extconf.rb

    Result:

    checking for libxml/parser.h... *** extconf.rb failed ***
...

    I’m using Ubuntu so I search for any similar packages:

    $ aptitude search libxml

    Results:

    p libxml2 - GNOME XML library
p libxml2-dev - Development files for the GNOME XML library
...

    I believe that libxml2 will work fine.

    $ apt-get install libxml2

    Ruby native gems often need the *-dev packages for headers so install them:

    $ apt-get install libxml2-dev

    Now do I have the parser file?

    $ find / | grep libxml/parser.h

    Yes, the result shows the parser:

    /usr/include/libxml2/libxml/parser.h

    Now try installing again, this time providing the libxml2 path:

    $ gem install nokogiri -- --with-xml2-dir=/usr/include/libxml2

    It still fails, so read the mkmf error log:

    $ more mkmf.log

    The error log shows what failed and has these lines that look promising:

    package configuration for libxslt is not found

    Is there a package for it?

    $ aptitude search libxslt

    Results:

    v   libxslt-dev
i   libxslt-ruby
...

    Install the dev package:

    $ apt-get install libxslt-dev

    Now try installing again, and also put xslt on the path:

    $ gem install nokogiri -- \
--with-xml2-dir=/usr/include/libxml2 \
--with-xslt-dir=/usr/include/libxslt

    Success!

    • 0