The Perfect Rails/Debian/Lighttpd VPS instructions

Hey list-

With all the talk about the need for stable rails hosting going

around I thought this might help some people. I have been setting up
great debian boxes on xen VPS servers at http://rimuhosting.com. And
I have documented the install from a minimal debian install to a full
fledged rails stack with the following software installed:

Ruby
Gems
Rails
ImageMagick
Rmagick
mysql
mysql-ruby bindings
sshd
sftp
fastcgi-dev kit
fastcgi-ruby bindings
perl-compat-regex(for lighttpd)
lighttpd 1.4.7 with fastcgi
subversion client and server
Webmin Control Panel set up with a bunch of modules for ssh and
postfix as well as webmail.
Whatever else is needed along the way as dependencies

You can use these same instructions on and debian install as well

but the vps servers I have been setting up lately are performing very
well on a $29/month VPS plan.

So I hope this helps out a few folks looking to get their own rails

sandbox set up. If anyone signs up with rimuhosting would you please
mention my name to them? If you do I get a $15 hosting credit. Thats
not the reason I did this though, so if you don’t want to do this
that is fine too. I just see all the complaints people have about the
shared rails hosting thats available. Most of which has very crappy
uptimes these days. I have been enjoying my personal sandbox for
rails dev very much and I just thought I would share it with the
community.

Here is the url:

http://brainspl.at/articles/2005/11/13/the-perfect-lightweight-rails-
lighttpd-debian-install

Enjoy!

-Ezra Z.
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
[email protected]
509-577-7732