Can't start thin server as service, RubyGems: Could not find thin

Question

I used the following instructions to install and configure the Thin server as a service on Ubuntu 10.04.4 with Rails 3.2.3:

http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/5/6/ubuntu-hardy-thin-web-server-for-ruby

Thin server works fine running it from the application root, using 'thin start'

However, when I try to run the service using any of these commands:

service thin start
sudo service thin start
/etc/init.d/thin start
sudo /etc/init.d/thin start

I get the following error:

/home/myuser/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p125/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/dependency.rb:247:in `to_specs': Could not find thin (>= 0) amongst [bigdecimal-1.1.0, io-console-0.3, json-1.5.4, minitest-2.5.1, rake-0.9.2.2, rdoc-3.9.4] (Gem::LoadError)
    from /home/myuser/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p125/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/dependency.rb:256:in `to_spec'
    from /home/myuser/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p125/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:1210:in `gem'
    from /home/myuser/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p125/bin/thin:18:in `<main>'

This does not seem to be an issue with PATH, 'which thin' correctly returns:

home/myuser/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p125/bin/thin

I have also verified the existence of **/bin/thin wherever it's referenced

I have tried reinstalling the gem using 'gem uninstall thin', 'gem install thin' without success

Has anyone experienced this before? I only found one other instance of this problem: Cannot restart thin via remote machine

That issue seems to have been only over ssh, while I can't even get the thin service started locally

Thanks

Gstring

The guide you are following is for old version of ubuntu, 10.04 has has changed the way init scripts work. Besides, Why do you want to run thin using /etc/init.d? instead of thin -d? – Cost

Trying to get it to run as a service at startup, should I make an sh file that runs thin -d and put it somewhere to run at startup? – Gstring

Answer 1

It seems that each startup job is loaded its own shell. so, Try loading rvm before trying to start thin:

#! /bin/sh
# Load RVM into a shell session *as a function*
if [[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] ; then

  # First try to load from a user install
  source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm"

elif [[ -s "/usr/local/rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] ; then

  # Then try to load from a root install
  source "/usr/local/rvm/scripts/rvm"

else

  printf "ERROR: An RVM installation was not found.\n"

fi

rvm use 1.9.3
cd /path/to/your/application/code
bundle exec thin -d

place this in /etc/init.d/thin_service & run

$ sudo update-rc.d  thin_service defaults

Lastly, you can test by by simply typing sudo start thin_service & sudo stop start_thin instead of rebooting. If this still doesn't work, try railsgems-bundler and rvm wrapper. Also, do read rvm's Deployment Best Practices

Cost

Answer 2

Since its seems from your stacktrace you are using rvm, and you are using thin installed as a gem, you need to use rvm wrappers for the service to work. First remove the service end re-install it rvmsudo thin install instead of sudo thin install. You should also use rvmsudo thin config while creating the configuration file as well.

To createa a wrapper,

rvm wrapper <your_rvm_ruby_version>@<your_rvm_gemset_in_use> bootup thin

you can find the names by using rvm list and rvm gemset list respectively. The wrapper will have name bootup_thin which you can confirm it is using the right rvm by which bootup_thin. You can give it whatever name you want while creating it. Then you need to edit thin script by

sudo nano /etc/init.d/thin

Change the original DAEMON to

DAEMON=location_of_bootup_thin 

Which should be the result of which bootup_thin. Then you can start the service.

sudo service thin start

I hope this helps

Timecard