there is a 2019 revised version of this article Set up Ubuntu 18.04 for Ruby on Rails

Let say you want to quickly set up fresh install Ubuntu 16.04 for Ruby on Rails application that uses Redis, Elasticache and Postgres.

Generate ssh key

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]"

Install RVM + Ruby

https://rvm.io/rvm/install

gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 409B6B1796C275462A1703113804BB82D39DC0E3
curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash
source ~/.bash_profile

rvm install 2.3.3

gem install bundler rake

Install PostgreSQL

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-postgresql-on-ubuntu-16-04

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install postgresql-contrib postgresql-9.5 libpq-dev

2016-11-27 you should end up with postgres version 9.5 installed

psql --version
# psql (PostgreSQL) 9.5.5

setup Postgres user

https://github.com/equivalent/scrapbook2/blob/master/postgresql.md

# bash
sudo -u postgres psql 

# inside psql

CREATE USER myuser WITH PASSWORD 'myPassword';

# if you want him to be superuser
ALTER USER myuser WITH SUPERUSER;

# if you just want him to be able to create DB
ALTER USER myuser WITH CREATEDB;

be sure to set credentials in config/database.yml inside your Rails project and now you can run rake db:create or rake db:migrate

Install Redis

e.g.: if you need Redis for Sidekiq or Resque or just for Rails caching server)

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-a-redis-cluster-on-ubuntu-14-04

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/redis-server
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install redis-server

2016-11-27 you should end up vith Redis server version 3.0.7

redis-server --version
# Redis server v=3.0.7 sha=00000000:0 malloc=jemalloc-3.6.0 bits=64 build=6a943c0b5bf37fa1

connection should be accepted at 127.0.0.1:6379 (localhost + default Redis port)

Install Elasticache

e.g.: if you need Elasticsearch for search indexation Elasticsearch Rails

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-elasticsearch-on-ubuntu-16-04 https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-java-with-apt-get-on-ubuntu-16-04

sudo apt-get update

# install java
sudo apt-get install default-jre
sudo apt-get install default-jdk

# install elasticache
cd /tmp


# for elasticseach 5.x
echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/5.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-5.x.list
wget -qO - https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install elasticsearch
sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service

# for elasticsearch 2.3.1 (old one)
wget https://download.elastic.co/elasticsearch/release/org/elasticsearch/distribution/deb/elasticsearch/2.3.1/elasticsearch-2.3.1.deb
sudo dpkg -i elasticsearch-2.3.1.deb
sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service

connection should be accepted at 127.0.0.1:9200 (localhost + default elasticache port)

curl 127.0.0.1:9200

sudo systemctl status elasticsearch.service  # status
sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service   # start server
sudo systemctl stop elasticsearch.service    # stop server

Imagemagic

if you need image processing inside your Rails app with gems like Carrierwave, ActiveStorage, Paperclip or Dragonfly

sudo apt-get install  imagemagick libmagickcore-dev libxslt-dev libmagickwand-dev

MongoDB

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 0C49F3730359A14518585931BC711F9BA15703C6
echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 ] http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu xenial/mongodb-org/3.4 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.4.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mongodb-org
sudo systemctl start mongod

Docker

https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/ubuntulinux/

note: this is for ubuntu 16.04, for different version you will need diferent Docker source

# preparation
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https ca-certificates
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://ha.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 --recv-keys 58118E89F3A912897C070ADBF76221572C52609D
echo "deb https://apt.dockerproject.org/repo ubuntu-xenial main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y linux-image-extra-$(uname -r) jblinux-image-extra-virtual

# docker install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-engine
sudo service docker start

# add your user to docker user group (so you don't have to sudo all the time)
sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
# ...now log out and log back in

common error 1 - first time docker engine not starting

Setting up docker-engine (1.12.5-0~ubuntu-xenial) ...
Job for docker.service failed because the control process exited with
error code. See "systemctl status docker.service" and "journalctl -xe"
for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript docker, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package docker-engine (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit
status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 docker-engine
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

solution: this is due to docker not able to modify your networking setup in host (your laptop). To me this was happening due to fact that I was connected to VPN and OpenVPN refused to terminate (as docker-engine was trying to modify network setup). Solution for me was just to kill OpenVPN for this one ocassion.

But some people reported this bug when they have some custom IPv6 setup, some when Firewal is to strict…

common error 2 - docker daemon not running

when you lunch docker command like docker ps you may get:

Cannot connect to the Docker daemon. Is the docker daemon running on
this host?

try sudo docker ps

If it worked, you’ve just ignored the instruction “log out and log back in”. Do it and you should be fine

Docker Compose (docker-compose)

https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.9.0/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo  chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
docker-compose --version

Some common dependancy issues:

Qmake

if you get:

qmake: could not exec '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt4/bin/qmake': No such
file or directory
*** extconf.rb failed ***

do:

sudo apt-get install qt4-qmake libqt4-dev

source

capybara webkit

if you get:

cd src/ && make -f Makefile.webkit_server 
# ...
An error occurred while installing capybara-webkit (1.7.1), and Bundler
cannot continue.
Make sure that `gem install capybara-webkit -v '1.7.1'` succeeds before
bundling.

do:

sudo apt-get install libqtwebkit-dev

Note

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