PAYH - Deployment of Ruby on Rails Application

[#1]

I have been playing around with the RoR support on PAYH with mixed results.
I have successfully implemented a virgin RoR test application directly on the platform (via cunning use of cron) and this works.
I then tried to deply an existing application (upload, unpack, configure, run) and I can not get it to work.
My investigations show that the RoR platofrm is missing critical components; most notably rubygems and net/https.
Also I noticed that the vendor/rails area is symlinked to directories in /usr/share/rails owned by root (this is how the rails test app was generated on the payh platform).
I had frozen my Rails app (rake rails:freeze:gems) to make sure I had the right rails version but the app did not run. I removed the frozen rails and manually symlinked it to the items in /usr/share/rails. It starts now but fails because of missing components - this time net/https ?
Is is possible to get extra libraries installed on the payh platform ?
I fear that, without the ability to do this, the platform is of limited use: fine for test applications but no good for anything real.
Thanks

[#2]

Thanks for the feedback - RoR is a pretty new topic for me and I'm grateful for the feedback.
At some point soon we'll need to do a trawl of this forum and identify all the additional requirements that have come up, then go through each one and work out what we need to do, what risks if any are presented as a result, and create a plan for deploying the changes we can make. WI would be hopeful that we can get those libraries installed during the next few months or sooner, presuming that there are no significant issues with their use on the plesk platform.
Ian

[#3]

Thanks Ian,
I am happy to provide feedback regarding rails. I have already written notes explaining how to create a running test application but it's the real applications that we need to get working. I will be persevering to try and make this work and am happy to provide feedback.
I note that Plesk formally supports Rails but, without dependent libraries, it's pretty useless.
I haven't published any notes because I haven't yet got a real application to work and there seems to be very little interest in Rails here on PN anyway; the archives do show a few people asking for it (myself included) going back to 2006; however.
Regards,
John

[#4]

For those that are interested:
The Plesk platform has Ruby 1.8.5 and Rails 1.1.6 installed. It does not have Rubygems on it. That is an ancient version of rails. I am working on getting an up to date rails app up and running using the latest Rails 2.2.2 core which allows gem dependencies to be "vendored" into the application space (removing the requirement for a sysadmin to pre-install them).
If anyone else is interested in rails at all let me know...

[#5]

You may have already done so, but this sounds like one to raise on the Plusnet Usergroup forum.
See here or here

[#6]

More specifically here to vote for Ruby  or Here  on the PUG site to add comments.
Or of course there is this thread on Community.
Why log it in the PUGIT database?   

• It does tend to keep the data on problems in one area


• It is useful to be able to get reports on Problems in the same area for potential re-work;


• PUG does actively manage the problem database to bring important items to Plusnet attention

If you use the filtering options on the PUGIT page, you will find a range of long standing issues against CGI Platform; PAYH; Web Hosting; MySQL  many of which have been or will soon be addressed on the new PAYH platform before formal launch.  Plusnet do use PUGIT when planning new developments
Maurice

[#7]

I started the thread you refer to (http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1532.0.html)  and am aware of PUGIT 105. The reason this is raised here is because this is specifically discussing support on the new PAYH (Plesk) platform and the trial details specifically requested that support should be requested through the community support forum. That's why this thread is raised here

[#8]

Ian Wild suggested that I post this information here for Kevin Mawson's attention.
I have been doing some testing with the Rails platform and have come to the conclusion that the installed versions on the PAYH platform are rather old (being Ruby 1.8.5 and Rails 1.1.6) and there are missing tools that a typical rails platform would have, most notably RubyGems.
RubyGems is the package manager for Ruby and Rails libraries and a modern Rails app won't even start without it being present.
RubyGems is available here: http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/45905/rubygems-1.3.1.tgz
With Rails 2.2 it is possible for application dependencies to be packaged within the application which means it should be possible to package Rails itself and any libraries required into the user application space. However RubyGems is a system component that is required.
So I think that, with RubyGems installed, it should be possible to run any version of Rails from 2.2 onwards.
While we're at it, if we can update Rails to version 1.8.6 which is the recommended version for use with Rails. Ruby 1.8.7, 1.8.5, 1.8.4 and 1.8.2 are still usable too, but version 1.8.3 is not. Ruby 1.8.7 still has some bugs to straighten out (see http://www.rubyonrails.org/down).
Kevin - Ian suggested that I highlight this for your attention to see if we can incorporate RubyGems and Rails to 1.8.6 into a plesk update.

[#9]

Sorry for not chasing this Starfry. I've been completely tied up on another project this last couple of weeks, but I will do my best to speak to Kevin about this next week as it's one I'm hopeful we should be able to nail for you, and also because I really want to have a crack at RoR myself on the new platform (if I can find a minute!).
Ian

[#10]

Thanks Ian
Yesterday I successfully installed RubyGems locally in my home directory and using that I installed the latest Rails 2.2.2. I can generate an application but it won't run because dependencies like openssl are missing. I can see openssl is there it's just that Ruby is missing its openssl bindings. I failed to rebuild Ruby locally due to the absence of gcc on the platform.
At this point I have to give up until such a time as you guys are able to make changes to the platform. I think the ideal we need to achieve is
  (a) upgrade Ruby to 1.8.6 (NOT 1.8.7 as it's known to contain issues - Rails states a preference for 1.8.6); Make sure it has the openssl bindings.
  (b) install RubyGems (1.3.1 is the latest version)
  (c) install Rails 2.2.2
You can check a Ruby install has openssl with the command: ruby -rubygems -e "require 'openssl'"
PM me if you want info about how I installed RubyGems and Rails in my home directory.

[#11]

Hi is there any update on this issue. I haven't looked into it since the last post and it's gone quiet. Just wondering if there is any progress towards upgrading Ruby and Rails and providing RubyGems, etc.

[#12]

What is the situation with Ruby on Rails now? Has anyone got this working?
I have not used the web hosting facility at Plus before.
I just logged on to cshell. I can use msql but ruby is not found.
Is there a helpsheet which has step by step instructions of how to load my rails application on to this?

[#13]

There seems little interest here to be honest. I have got it working on the new "plesk" or "payh" platform which will be replacing ccgi in due course. You can ask for a trial on this platform - just search the forum for info. However the version of Rails on there is well out of date and is missing basic things needed to make it usable.
I can't get any commitment from PN about this so I've pretty much given up and have sought other solutions...

[#14]

Raised Rails again with plusnet and got following.
"Unfortunately our platform doesn't support Rails.
Sorry for the mis-information - I'll make the agents aware."

[#15]

Starfry, you mention that you have sought other solutions - what did you do? And how much has it cost?