gem install: Failed to build gem native extension (can't find header files)

Question

I am using Fedora 14 and I have MySQL and MySQL server 5.1.42 installed and running. Now I tried to do this as root user:

gem install mysql

But I get this error:

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing mysql:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb
mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at /usr/lib/ruby/ruby.h


Gem files will remain installed in /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1/ext/mysql_api/gem_make.out

What's wrong here? In installed ruby 1.8.7. and the latest rubygems 1.3.7.

Elect

Just a quick guess: do you have the dev fileheaders for MySQL – Martijn

How can I get these dev fileheaders? – Elect

I did it in Ubuntu doing the following: apt-get install ruby-dev rubygems gem install mysql -- with-mysql-config=/usr/bin/mysql_config All works fine. – Jarret

Answer 1

For those who may be confused by the accepted answer, as I was, you also need to have the ruby headers installed [ruby-devel].

The article that saved my hide is here.

And this is the revised solution (note that I'm on Fedora 13):

yum -y install gcc mysql-devel ruby-devel rubygems
gem install -y mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/bin/mysql_config

For Debian, and other distributions using Debian style packaging the ruby development headers are installed by:

sudo apt-get install ruby-dev

For Ubuntu the ruby development headers are installed by:

sudo apt-get install ruby-all-dev

If you are using a earlier version of ruby (such as 2.2), then you will need to run:

sudo apt-get install ruby2.2-dev

(where 2.2 is your desired Ruby version)

Taub

this worked when i had a problem trying to create an app using ruby on rails. it complained about how it can't install json and bundler can't continue. installing ruby-devel worked. – Buckram

In addition to ruby-dev posted by @NoBugs above, I also needed libmysqlcient-dev on Ubuntu (12.04). (Or, just see the Debian/Ubuntu answer by Damian Nowak below.) – Ear

Worked for me on RHEL6 when I had trouble installing jekyll. – Creigh

This helped me install fpm, probably helps install any ruby-based software. I used yum -y install gcc ruby-devel rubygems. – Golightly

Life saver. Nothing worked until I reached there before doing "gem install pg". Other install I did before it: postgresql-devel, postgresql-libs, postgresql93-server – Wanyen

Not running MySQL on Fedora 22, and rubygems installed with ruby, but ruby-devel certainly worked for me. – Conscionable

@SameerAzazi thanks.. updated the link courtesy of the Wayback Machine. – Taub

apt-get install ruby2.4-dev did work for me! (And my error was looking for ruby.h in /usr/lib/ruby/include/ruby.h just for context/relevance) – Corbeil

This was the missing piece I needed to get it working on WSL running Ubuntu – Obstipation

Answer 2

Red Hat, Fedora:

yum -y install gcc mysql-devel ruby-devel rubygems
gem install -y mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/bin/mysql_config

Debian, Ubuntu:

apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev ruby-dev
gem install mysql

Arch Linux:

pacman -S libmariadbclient
gem install mysql

Gamin

Is it this one? mysql-devel.i686 : Files for development of MySQL applications – Elect

For sure mysql-devel is needed. The question is what is needed besides. Maybe try this: fedora-tunisia.org/?q=node/44 Let me know if it works. – Gamin

I just had this problem here: #6298251 Good solution! – Augend

What you say is required, but it's ruby-devel that's needed to fix the error message in question. – Quieten

BTW on RedHat system is ruby-devel. – Vizier

Answer 3

For anyone reading this in 2015: if you happened to install the package ruby2.0, you need to install the matching ruby2.0-dev to get the appropriate Ruby headers. The same goes for ruby2.1 and ruby2.2, etc. For example:

$ sudo apt-get install ruby2.2-dev

Saline

On fedora 22: sudo dnf install ruby-devel – Enterpriser

Thank you! ruby is so weird sometimes. – Ensiform

Same goes for ruby 2.3. – Scarce

Answer 4

it seems that the

yum install ruby-devel

was enough for me to perform

gem install datamapper

afterwards.

It's possible that you will need to install another packages:

yum install gcc gcc-c++

to be able to build native extensions

Irishirishism

I was getting a very wierd error, without a clear message, and it was because gcc packages were not instaled. :( This post made me remember of this basic step. ;P – Geographical

Answer 5

MAC users may face this issue when xcode tools are not installed properly. Below is the command to get rid of the issue.

xcode-select --install

Blowsy

yeah, that was the problem. Thanks a lot! – Isosteric

And then this sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin cocoapods thumbsup – Cedillo

Answer 6

I found the solution here.

# yum install mysql-devel gcc make
# gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/bin/mysql_config

Elect

Answer 7

This post helped me. Thanks a lot.

On Linux (Ubuntu 12.10) I needed to run

sudo apt-get install ruby
sudo apt-get install rubygems
sudo apt-get install ruby-dev

before I could succesfully run

sudo gem install jekyll

Kaela

Answer 8

If you have gem installed and ruby and not able to install rails, then install ruby dev lib.

sudo apt-get install ruby-dev

It works for me. I have tried the different solution.

Cajole

I have Ubuntu 16.04LTS. I think, same will be for other previous version. – Cajole

Answer 9

Red Hat, Fedora:

sudo dnf -y install gcc-c++ redhat-rpm-config ruby-devel gcc mysql-devel rubygems

Neat

Answer 10

For those that are still experiencing problems, like I have(I am using Ubuntu 16.04), I had to put in the following commands in order to get some gems like bcrypt, pg, and others installed. They are all similar to the ones above except for one.

sudo apt-get install ruby-dev -y
sudo apt-get install libpq-dev -y
sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev
sudo apt-get install build-essential patch -y

This allowed me to install gems like, PG, bcrypt, and recaptcha.

Quorum

Answer 11

You need following packages instaled:

• ruby-dev

• gcc

• libffi-dev

• make

Here's the command for debian distro:

 sudo apt install gcc ruby-dev rubygems libgmp-dev libgmp3-dev make 

Palish

Answer 12

My initial solution was to resolve the above errors by installing ruby-devel, patch and rubygems.

My issue was a bit different as bcrypt 3.1.11 still had issues compiling and installing on Fedora 23. I needed additional packages. So after ensuring I had the above installed, I was still having issues:

gcc: error: conftest.c: No such file or directory

gcc: error: /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1: No such file or directory

From here I had to do the following:

• I ensured that I wasn't lacking any C compiler tools sudo dnf group install "C Development Tools and Libraries"

• Then I ran sudo dnf install redhat-rpm-config to resolve the gcc issue listed above.

You can find a write up here on Fedore Project. You may also find answers to other needs as well.

Salmonoid

Answer 13

sudo apt-get install ruby-dev

This command solved the problem for me!

Thenceforth

Answer 14

in openSUSE:

zypper in ruby-devel

Works to me :)

Andry

Answer 15

It's necessary to install redhat-rpm-config to. I guess it solve your problem!

Moorings

Answer 16

This worked for me:

yum -y install gcc mysql-devel ruby-devel rubygems

Fullrigged

Answer 17

You might have messed up with the RVM.

Try to do:

\curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --rails

Endoskeleton

Answer 18

Just to add path to ruby.h file in my PATH
for example:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/src/ruby-xxxxxx

Mesoglea