Passenger 4 with PassengerRuby and different gem set

Question

I've got a server that predominantly runs Ruby 1.8.7, but now I have a Rails 3.2 app that needs 1.9.3. I've installed Passenger 4 as it supports the ability to run multiple Rubies on a per-virtual server basis.

However, it appears that while you can assign a particular Ruby, the application doesn't have access to that Ruby's gemset. So I have my virtual server configured with the 1.9.3 Ruby, as confirmed on the error page my application now gives:

Ruby interpreter command
/home/aaron/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/bin/ruby

But the GEM_HOME parameter tells a different story:

GEM_HOME = /home/aaron/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p352

Looking through the configuration directives for Passenger 4, I see no way to specify a different gemset. Am I missing something, or is this thing just not ready for prime time?

Trunkfish

Are you deploying with capistrano? By default it installs gems locally, thus completely bypassing the path specified in GEM_HOME. If not a complete solution, might be a viable workaround. – Haw

I setup my application to work via Capistrano, but that didn't work. Turns out installing Passenger 4 with Ruby 1.8.7 is the problem. When I run Passenger 4 under 1.9.3 it works fine. But it's a no-go. :-( – Trunkfish

Answer 1

From your gemset dir run:

   $ passenger-config --ruby-command

It will tell you ruby path for Apache and Nginx.

  Command: /home/deric/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-2.0.0-p247@my_gemset/ruby
  Version: ruby 2.0.0p247 (2013-06-27 revision 41674) [x86_64-linux]
  To use in Apache: PassengerRuby /home/deric/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-2.0.0-p247@my_gemset/ruby
  To use in Nginx : passenger_ruby /home/deric/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-2.0.0-p247@my_gemset/ruby

Nginx: For Passenger 4 you can specify multiple ruby versions. So for specific server config:

your_site.conf:

server {
   listen 80;
   root /home/aaron/web/public;
   passenger_enabled on;
   passenger_ruby /home/aaron/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-2.0.0-p247@your_gemset/ruby;
}

nginx.conf: (this works for new passenger 4.0.17)

http {

    passenger_root /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/phusion_passenger/locations.ini;

}

Just run from your gemset dir this:

   $ passenger-status

It will check whether passenger_native_support.so is available. Depending on your RVM installation, you might need to run it with rvmsudo

   $ rvmsudo passenger-status

For Debian/Ubuntu there are now binary packages of nginx and passenger available which makes the installation much easier.

Wellnigh

Answer 2

As Tombart pointed out: If you use the precompiled Passenger modules (in my case for for Apache2) you end up with a system up and running.

However, if using RVM I stumbled upon the fact that you need to use the "wrapper directory" to select the correct RVM ruby version and gemet like so in your Apache vhost config:

PassengerRuby /home/of_your_ruby_user/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-x.y.z-p123@gemset/ruby

This way Passenger knows how to find the correct gemset relative to this directory (../../gems/ruby-x.y.z-p123@gemset/gems). Otherwise Passenger would use the "standard ruby gemset" which is odd if you want to run multiple apps with the same ruby version. I can only guess that this is similar for Nginx.

Jennettejenni