Install a separate set of gems

I run a small RoR application on a company server. I try to install
my own list of gems because I would like to test new features, but the
admin did not want to install these because these may disrupt other
applications. Since I know that I can install some gems locally in my
own machine, I ask the admin if it is possible to have a separate set
of gems only for my application or for my user account. However, he
said “no.” Is it really impossible to do that?

Jiggy Jiggy wrote:

I run a small RoR application on a company server. I try to install
my own list of gems because I would like to test new features, but the
admin did not want to install these because these may disrupt other
applications. Since I know that I can install some gems locally in my
own machine, I ask the admin if it is possible to have a separate set
of gems only for my application or for my user account. However, he
said “no.” Is it really impossible to do that?

No. Your admin does not know what he is talking about: gem will install
in ~/.gem if it can’t get write access to the system gem path.

However, for Rails apps, there’s a better way: rake gems:unpack will put
gems into your app’s vendor/gems directory.

Best,
–Â
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:

Jiggy Jiggy wrote:

I run a small RoR application on a company server. I try to install
my own list of gems because I would like to test new features, but the
admin did not want to install these because these may disrupt other
applications. Since I know that I can install some gems locally in my
own machine, I ask the admin if it is possible to have a separate set
of gems only for my application or for my user account. However, he
said “no.” Is it really impossible to do that?

No. Your admin does not know what he is talking about: gem will install
in ~/.gem if it can’t get write access to the system gem path.

However, for Rails apps, there’s a better way: rake gems:unpack will put
gems into your app’s vendor/gems directory.

Sweet. I think that this is a better approach.

Best,
–Â
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 2:08 PM, jiggy [email protected] wrote:

I run a small RoR application on a company server. I try to install
my own list of gems because I would like to test new features, but the
admin did not want to install these because these may disrupt other
applications. Since I know that I can install some gems locally in my
own machine, I ask the admin if it is possible to have a separate set
of gems only for my application or for my user account. However, he
said “no.” Is it really impossible to do that?

Hi, you can use the Bundler gem to package your gems with your Rails
application. Thus, you can find information about the gem here:

Good luck,

-Conrad

Conrad T. wrote:

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 2:08 PM, jiggy [email protected] wrote:

I run a small RoR application on a company server. I try to install
my own list of gems because I would like to test new features, but the
admin did not want to install these because these may disrupt other
applications. Since I know that I can install some gems locally in my
own machine, I ask the admin if it is possible to have a separate set
of gems only for my application or for my user account. However, he
said “no.” Is it really impossible to do that?

Hi, you can use the Bundler gem to package your gems with your Rails
application. Thus, you can find information about the gem here:

GitHub - rubygems/bundler: Manage your Ruby application's gem dependencies

Good luck,

-Conrad

Brilliant thread - this is really useful info for he future!

On a similar note to the OP’s original comment about a local copy…I
was struggling yesterday. I knew i’d installed cucumber but from the
command line it wouldn’t run. After some digging i worked out i’d done
‘gem install’ rather than ‘sudo gem install’ and it had ended up in my
user directory. So the admin is wrong but it does sound like the bundler
is the right solution :slight_smile: