# Help me run rails on apache on Linux Fedora

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-me-run-rails-on-apache-on-linux-fedora/99217>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 21, 2006, 2:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-me-run-rails-on-apache-on-linux-fedora/99217 "2006-07-21T02:32:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomtt)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2006, 2:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-me-run-rails-on-apache-on-linux-fedora/99217/1 "2006-07-21T02:32:48Z")

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Hello all,

I am new on the rails list, having signed up today, but I am in  
the midst of some sticky business getting rails to go on my linux  
system. I am running Fedora Core 4, with Ruby 1.8.4 and Apache 2.0.54.

I have setup the chapter 4 tutorial from the “agile book” and  
everything works absolutely perfectly using Webrick. I got  
rails 1.1.3 from ruby gems, and since have done an update to 1.1.4

I decided I really wanted to play with this for real and have it  
run something on port 80 (and I am already running an Apache  
server with two virtual hosts). This has led to no end of  
headaches. At first I dove headfirst into getting mod\_fcgid  
setup, but then I backed off and just tried to get it to run  
using plain old CGI, which is still what I am trying to do now.

To summarize in a nutshell:

[http://cholla.mmto.org/rails\_work/demo/public/](http://cholla.mmto.org/rails_work/demo/public/)

Gets me the usual rails greeting page (would probably work for you too).  
But this is no big deal, it is just fetching demo/public/index.html

[http://cholla.mmto.org/rails\_work/demo/public/say/hello](http://cholla.mmto.org/rails_work/demo/public/say/hello)

gives me a 500 Application Error, with no information whatsoever  
in the apache error\_log. I do have the environment set to development.

My detailed play by play log can be found at:

[http://cholla.mmto.org/computers/rubyonrails/](http://cholla.mmto.org/computers/rubyonrails/)

If anyone is patient enough to follow along with all this and  
give me a tip or two, I would sure appreciate it.

In particular:

[http://cholla.mmto.org/computers/rubyonrails/apache\_trace.html](http://cholla.mmto.org/computers/rubyonrails/apache_trace.html)

details what I learned yesterday by putting puts statements in  
the code, printing interesting things and following along to  
see what was blowing up. I followed it to:

/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.1.4/lib/dispatcher.rb

And in particular the the lines:

request, response = ActionController::CgiRequest.new(cgi,  
session\_options), ActionController::CgiResponse.new(cgi)  
prepare\_application  
ActionController::Routing::Routes.recognize!(request).process(request,  
response).out(output)

It seems that both request and response are nil, at least I get I 500  
error  
if I try to access them in some way.

Any help would be appreciated, I have spent about 3 days on this so far,  
and am very much the better man for it all (I think!?), but wiser ones  
out there could perhaps save me some pain.

```
Tom

```

–  
Tom T.  
MMT Observatory  
University of Arizona – Tucson  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomtt)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2006, 4:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-me-run-rails-on-apache-on-linux-fedora/99217/2 "2006-07-21T16:16:02Z")

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Don’t know if you’ve found this yet, but this is the repository of all  
the  
various Install HowTos:

[http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtosInstallation](http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtosInstallation)

There are several that cover installations similar to yours.

If you work through those and still have no luck, you can try posting  
your  
Vhost config and your .htaccess so we can see them.

HTH,  
Jeff

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomtt)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-me-run-rails-on-apache-on-linux-fedora/99217/3 "2006-07-21T22:31:19Z")

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On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 08:12:37AM -0600, Jeff Everett wrote:

> Don’t know if you’ve found this yet, but this is the repository of all the  
> various Install HowTos:
> 
> [1][Peak Obsession](http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtosInstallation)
> 
> There are several that cover installations similar to yours.
> 
> If you work through those and still have no luck, you can try posting your  
> Vhost config and your .htaccess so we can see them.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I am looking those over (and have used  
a couple of them along the way), now slowing down and reading some  
of this more carefully, but no joy yet.

This all seemed so slick with Webrick on port 3000.

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**Author:** ![tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@tomtt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomtt)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2006, 4:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-me-run-rails-on-apache-on-linux-fedora/99217/4 "2006-07-22T04:26:52Z")

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This may not be an option for you, but, I found Fedora Core 5 much  
easier to  
set up. Though, in development mode I use mongrel instead. ( cleaner,  
simpler…)  
-Larry