Question

Is is possible to install Ruby on Rails alongside WampServer (and keep WampServer’s Apache/MySQL installs)?

Answer 1

I installed Ruby on Rails alongside WampServer. Here is how to do it:

Replace C:\wamp\ in the following text by your own WampServer’s install repository.

Installing Ruby:

1. Download Ruby. Use the Windows binary version, not the “one click installer” because it contains MySQL and Apache which we don’t need.
2. Extract the zip to C:\wamp\ruby\.

3. Add Ruby’s bin repository in your PATH environment variable:

   1. Right click “Computer / Properties”.
   2. Click “Advanced System Settings”.
   3. Advanced tab / Environment Variables.
   4. Append ;C:\wamp\ruby\bin to the Path variable.

Installing DevKit:

Download DevKit:

1. Extract DevKit to c:\wamp\ruby\DevKit.
2. cd /d c:\wamp\ruby\DevKit.

3. ruby dk.rb init.

   • Add - c:\wamp\ruby to the end of config.yml.

4. ruby dk.rb install

Installing Rails and the Mongrel server:

1. Open the command line and type:

   gem install rails
   

2. Create your first Rails application by opening the command line from C:\wamp\www\rails\ and typing:

   rails hello
   

3. Install the Mongrel server and Windows Mongrel service, making sure to run the command line as administrator:

   gem install mongrel and 
   gem install mongrel_service
   

4. Install a Windows service for your Rails application:

   mongrel_rails service::install -N ruby-hello -c c:\wamp\www\rails\hello -p 3001 -e development
   

5. Start your Mongrel service:

   net start ruby-hello
   

You can now access your Rails application at http://localhost:3001/.

Integrating with Apache

1. Enable mod_proxy in httpd.conf

   Open httpd.conf (c:\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.x.x\conf\httpd.conf) and uncomment the following line:

   LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
   

2. Forward your traffic to your Mongrel server. Add the following text to your httpd.conf (or extra/httpd-vhosts.conf if it’s included in your httpd.conf):

   <VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName hello.com
   ServerAlias *.hello.com
   ProxyPass / http://localhost:3001/
   ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:3001
   </VirtualHost>
   

3. Add hello.com to your hosts file. Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in Notepad and add the following line:

   127.0.0.1 www.hello.com hello.com
   

You can now go to http://www.hello.com and it should load your Rails application.

References:

• http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads
• http://www.wampserver.com
• http://www.ruby-lang.org
• http://mongrel.rubyforge.org and http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/wiki/Win32