From OCS Support Wiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Compile and Install 3 Ruby Gems 4 Cleanup

Introduction

This guide will show you how to install your own local install of Ruby, so that you can control the version of it and exactly what gems are installed.

If you plan to use this with Ruby with Rails, you can only use Mongrel, as mod_rails / Passenger uses the system-wide Ruby we have installed.

Please Note: It is not necessary to do this to use Ruby on our systems, as we have it installed already. The instructions are for people who wish to maintain their own copy of Ruby with the exact gems they want.

Compile and Install

In the below commands, if you want to use a different version of Ruby, simply replace ruby-1.9.1-p243 with whatever version you want.

cd
mkdir ruby
mkdir sources
cd sources
wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.1-p243.tar.bz2
tar xfz ruby-1.9.1-p243.tar.bz2
rm -f ruby-1.9.1-p243.tar.bz2
cd ruby-1.9.1-p243

Now Ruby is ready to be compiled. In the below example, replace ocs with your cPanel/FTP username:

./configure --prefix=/home/ocs/ruby
make
make install
cd

If you get any errors during this part, we may have to turn off your jail shell. Please contact us to do so.

Edit the file ~/.bashrc:

nano ~/.bashrc

At the bottom, add:

PATH=$HOME/ruby/bin:$PATH:$HOME/bin
export PATH

Save the file, exit your shell, and login again via SSH.

Ruby Gems

Now you need to install your own Ruby Gems:

cd
cd sources
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
tar xfz rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
rm -f rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.5
~/ruby/bin/ruby setup.rb

Once installed, you can run:

gem list --local

to confirm there are no gems installed. This is the correct result. If there are gems installed, you are using our Ruby and something has gone wrong. To fix this, delete the ruby directory in your home directory entirely and repeat this guide again.

Now you can install whatever gems you want locally, for example:

gem install rails mongrel

will install Rails and Mongrel. Note that their binaries will be put in ~/ruby/bin/*, so if you run mongrel_rails it will be ran first from your local directory instead of our system-wide installation.

Cleanup

If you wish to save disk space on your account, you can remove the sources directory, as it is no longer needed:

cd
rm -Rf sources