Setting up Ubuntu with Rails, Git, Heroku, Capybara and more

I've been following Michael Hartl's excellent Ruby on Rails tutorial. One nice thing about is it that it not only explains Rails, but guides the reader through setting up an entire development ecosystem with GitHub for source control, Heroku for deployment, RSpec and Capybara for testing, and Bootstrap for stylesheets.

I'm using an Amazon Web Services Ubuntu instance. Hartl provides instructions for setting up all the required software on a variety of platforms, including Linux. For the most part, his instructions worked for me, but I found that a few tweaks were needed. This article documents how I set up my AWS Ubuntu box.

Prerequisites:

• An AWS account with a keypair
• A GitHub account
• A Heroku account

Launch the AWS EC2 instance

• Log in to your AWS account.
• On the EC2 Dashboard, click Launch Instance
• Click Classic Wizard. Step through the wizard, accepting the default, except:
• Choose the AMI Ubuntu Server 12.04.1 LTS (64-bit).
• I set the Instance Type to T1 Micro. You can use any Instance Type you wish. T1 Micro is a bit underpowered, but qualifies for AWS's free tier.
• Select your existing keypair.
• Set the Security Group to quick-start-1. Or use any Security Group you wish. Configure the Security Group to provide inbound access on TCP 22, 80 and 3000 for any IP addresses that will access the server.
• After you complete the wizard, you may want to give your instance a name. I called mine Ubuntu Ruby 3.
• Connect to your instance for the first time:
• Make sure your browser supports Java.
• Right-click the instance in the EC2 Dashboard and select Connect.
• Change the user name to ubuntu.
• For the private key path, browse to your keypair file (e.g. mine is located at C:\Users\ssaporta\Desktop\stevekeypair.pem).
• Check the Save key location box.
• Click Launch SSH Client. Respond affirmatively to any security dialogs that may appear, so that the Java SSH client can run.
• When prompted Do you want to add this host? click Yes.

Install Git, RVM, Ruby and Rails

Section 1.2.2 of the tutorial  provides instructions for Git, RVM, Ruby and Rails installation, but I had some trouble with them on Ubuntu. Based on this Sudobits Blog entry, I found the steps below worked better:

• Launch the SSH client to connect to your instance.
• Enter sudo apt-get update.
• Enter sudo apt-get install git.
• Enter curl -L get.rvm.io | bash -s stable.
• Enter source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm.
• Enter sudo /usr/bin/apt-get install build-essential openssl libreadline6 libreadline6-dev curl git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool bison subversion pkg-config.
• Enter sudo apt-add-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js.
• Enter sudo apt-get update.
• Enter sudo apt-get install nodejs.
• Enter rvm install 1.9.3. On a T1 Micro instance, this could take half an hour or so.
• Enter rvm use 1.9.3 --default.
• Enter gem install rails. This, too, could take a while on a T1 Micro instance.

Create and publish your first Rails app

This section walks through the creation of a simple Rails app, but my real point in including it is to show the steps for setting up pushes to GitHub and Heroku.

• Launch the SSH client to connect to your instance.
• Create the file ~/.gemrc with these contents:

install: --no-rdoc --no-ri

update: --no-rdoc --no-ri

• Create a folder and create a Rails project in it:
• Enter mkdir rails_projects.
• Enter cd rails_projects.
• Enter rails new first_app.
• Enter cd rails_projects/first_app.
• Set up Git and GitHub, and perform your first commit:
• Enter git config --global user.name "Your Name". Replace Your Name with your actual name.
• Enter git config --global user.email you@example.com. replace you@example.com with your actual email address.
• Enter git init.
• If desired, edit .gitignore as Hartl suggests
• Enter git add . (yes, that's a dot at the end).
• Enter git commit -m “Initial commit”.
• Enter cd ~/.ssh.
• Enter ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "you@example.com". Replace you@example.com with your actual email address. Press Enter three times to use the default filename and a blank passphrase.
• Enter cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub. Select the output and press Ctrl+Ins to copy it to the clipboard.
• In a web browser on your own computer, log in to your GitHub account and create a new repository:
• Set the repository name to first_app.
• Set the description to The first app for the Ruby on Rails tutorial.
• Select Public.
• Do not check the box to initialize this repository with a README.
• In GitHub, click the Account Settings icon.
• Click SSH Keys.
• Click Add SSH Key. Enter a title (e.g. ubuntu). Paste the key from the clipboard. Enter your password when prompted.
• Return to your SSH client and enter cd ~/rails_projects/first_app.
• Enter git remote add origin git@github.com:username/first_app.git. Replace username with your actual GitHub username.
• Enter git push -u origin master. When prompted, enter yes.
• Deploy your Rails app to Heroku:
• Enter wget -qO- https://toolbelt.heroku.com/install-ubuntu.sh | sh.
• Enter heroku login. Enter your Heroku username and password when prompted.
• Enter heroku keys:add ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
• Enter git push heroku master.
• Note the URL displayed in the output. You can view your app on Heroku at this URL.

At this point, you should be all set to develop Rails apps, test them with RSpec and Capybara, push them to GitHub, and deploy them to Heroku.