# Ruby on rails newbie please help cgi problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [October 13, 2008, 9:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828 "2008-10-13T21:35:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/omgitsads)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 9:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828/1 "2008-10-13T21:35:27Z")
Hi Just wondering I installed rails but cant seem to get any CGI scripts running i created a directory in the railsproject/public directory called cgi-bin which I gave Options +ExecCGI. Furthermore, I cant get any .rhtml files to parse embedded ruby. I find ruby on rails extremely complicated, this is my first experience with configuring apache and ruby on rails and I am getting very frustrated. I am running apache2 on ubuntu 7.10 I set up the virtual directory and am greeted with the riding on rails screen (however if i click about your applications environment i get an error). I am wondering if I should even be using rails as i programmed with ruby before using DBI modules for database connectivity and never had any problems. Mainly what I want to do is get embedded ruby working. I had this working before with eruby and the mod\_ruby module but i switched to mod\_rails and now everything has gone to crap. Any help is GREATLY appreciated, please bear in mind I am primarily a windows software programmer and am very new to ubuntu, apache and rails. I placed this file in the available-sites directory called gridtest ` ServerName gridtest.com ServerAlias www.gridtest.com DocumentRoot /var/www/htdocs/railstest/public AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI Order allow,deny Allow from all ` Thanks, Adam ---
**Author:** ![omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/omgitsads)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828/2 "2008-10-13T21:54:36Z")
On Oct 13, 8:35 pm, Adam H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi Just wondering I installed rails but cant seem to get any CGI scripts > running i created a directory in the railsproject/public directory > called cgi-bin which I gave Options +ExecCGI. Furthermore, I cant get > any .rhtml files to parse embedded ruby. I find ruby on rails extremely > complicated, this is my first experience with configuring apache and > ruby on rails and I am getting very frustrated. I am running apache2 on > ubuntu 7.10 I set up the virtual directory and am greeted with the > riding on rails screen (however if i click about your applications > environment i get an error) That may be a partial red herring - the stuff to display the application environment is not loading in production mode (which is what mod\_rails defaults to I believe. Dunno about the rest - I doubt many people writing rails apps use cgi scripts like that. Fred . I am wondering if I should even be using ---
**Author:** ![omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/omgitsads)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 10:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828/3 "2008-10-14T22:43:32Z")
> complicated, this is my first experience with configuring apache and > ruby on rails and I am getting very frustrated. I am running apache2 on Maybe mod\_rails will help, as it simplifies deployment. Cheers! -=R ---
**Author:** ![omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/omgitsads)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 4:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828/4 "2008-10-15T04:49:10Z")
Roger P. wrote: > > complicated, this is my first experience with configuring apache and > > ruby on rails and I am getting very frustrated. I am running apache2 on > > Maybe mod\_rails will help, as it simplifies deployment. > Cheers! > -=R I have installed mod\_rails but still cant seem to get the embedded ruby working in .rhtml files. Do I need eruby for this if so how do I configure it with mod rails? Following is the configuration I had with eruby and mod\_ruby which was working before. It seems from what I have read that ruby comes with erb for embedding ruby in .rhtml and .erb.html files. I can revert back to these settings but I really want to understand what is going wrong here. The following code was stored in /conf.d/ruby.conf ` AddType text/html .rhtml RubyRequire apache/ruby-run RubyRequire apache/eruby-run ``` # Execute *.rbx files as Ruby scripts SetHandler ruby-object RubyHandler Apache::RubyRun.instance # Handle *.rhtml files as eRuby files ErrorDocument 500 /etc/apache2/customerror/error_500.rb SetHandler ruby-object RubyHandler Apache::ERubyRun.instance ``` ` ---
**Author:** ![omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/omgitsads)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 9:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828/5 "2008-10-15T09:56:09Z")
On Oct 15, 3:49 am, Adam H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > configure it with mod rails? > Why aren’t you just letting rails render your templates? Fred ---
**Author:** ![omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/omgitsads)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828/6 "2008-10-16T02:32:10Z")
Frederick C. wrote: > On Oct 15, 3:49�am, Adam H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > wrote: > > > configure it with mod rails? > > Why aren’t you just letting rails render your templates? > > Fred Im sorry Im really knew to rails, what are these templates and how do I render them with rails. I am also wondering is there any advantage to using rails if I write my own login script / use the DBI module for database connectivity? It seems from what I have heard that rails is primarily useful due to its easy of deployment. I want to become more familiar with rails because I keep hearing good things about it and it seems like it is quickly becoming very popular so I am just wondering what are the specific benefits? Thanks, Adam ---
**Author:** ![omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/dbc845/32.png) [@omgitsads](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/omgitsads)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-newbie-please-help-cgi-problem/150828/7 "2008-10-16T02:50:53Z")
On 16 Oct 2008, at 01:32, Adam H. wrote: > Im sorry Im really knew to rails, what are these templates and how > do I > render them with rails. It sounds to me like you just want to dump some rhtml templates somewhere and have ruby render them. That’s fine, but that’s fundamentally not how rails work. Rails applications have a very specific structure. Your app splits into models, typically wrappers round a database table, controllers which sit between the outside world and your models, and views which are the .rhtml (now usually named .html.erb) files you were worrying about. Apache never touches a .rhtml file directly - it hands the request over to a rails worker (a mongrel, a fastcgi instance, a mod\_rails instance) which does a bunch of stuff (which may include rendering one of the app’s rhtml templates) and passes the response back I could waffle about this more, but I think that you would have more to gain by reading one of the many rails tutorials (make sure you pick a fairly recent one). I’d also advise that you forget about apache for a second. webrick/mongrel (which you can launch by running ruby script/server from the root of our app) are more than enough to get you going. > While there are many great things about rails, I wouldn’t call ease of deployment its main strength (if anything historically it has been what puts people off). Fred