# Trouble deploying Radiant on a shared host

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241>\
**Category:** Radiant CMS\
**Created:** [April 29, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241 "2007-04-29T23:00:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/burrowsm)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241/1 "2007-04-29T23:00:38Z")

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Hello all,

I’m trying to deploy Radiant on Site5’s shared hosting, but I can’t  
seem to get it to go. I was wondering if anyone had any pointers on  
how to try to debug this. Here’s how I have it setup:

I created a gems folder in my home, declared it my GEM\_HOME in  
my .bash\_profile and gemhome in .gemrc (as well as prepending it to  
my gempath in both places), and installed radiant without any  
troubles to it. I unpacked radiant (./gems/bin/radiant --database  
mysql radiant). I setup database.yml and pre-populated it with the  
bootstrap script. All is gravy. A very quick test of ./script/  
server shows that it’s running without any trouble at all. The  
server runs Ruby 1.8.4.

But: I can’t get the cgi scripts working. I get an Apache error  
500. Fast CGI repeatedly exits (with status 1) until it gets its  
restart interval rolled back to 600 seconds, and then it times out  
with the error: FastCGI: comm with (dynamic) server “/home/mbaumann/  
public\_html/test/dispatch.fcgi” aborted: (first read) idle timeout  
(30 sec). And plain-jane cgi gives up the chase immediately with the  
error: Premature end of script headers: /home/mbaumann/public\_html/  
radiant/dispatch.cgi. The scripts themselves don’t throw errors when  
run via the command line (./public/dispatch.(f)cgi) – they simply  
exit with status 0.

As a quick test, I quickly made a rails app (“rails foo”) and made a  
simple controller (rails -v yields version 1.2.3). That worked, with  
both fcgi and cgi (and fcgi was indeed faster). So I tried replacing  
the public folder in the radiant install with the one from “foo”.  
Same error. I tried freezing radiant (from the gem) and replacing  
the vendor/radiant/vendor/rails with the frozen counterpart from the  
working “foo”. Same error. Permissions seem to be set correctly (I  
have a umask of 0022 and the cgi scripts run under my user), but I  
tried chmod’ing the entire install to 755. Same error. I tried  
mucking around to my wits end in the public folder, reinstalling,  
retesting, reinstalling… same error. I’ve looked around at all the  
guides to deploying on shared hosts, trying all their debugging tips,  
and I get the same error. I’ve searched through the mailing list  
archives, but nothing there, either.

I’ll file a ticket with Site5, too, but to be honest, from my (naive)  
perspective, it really looks like it’s a problem on Radiant’s side of  
things. I’ve posted on the discussion board to no avail , but there  
are other users there running the mental release candidates without  
troubles. Is the Mental RC1 revision still available? I can test  
freezing to that revision (if I get the number) since I know that’s  
worked for another Site5 user.

Sorry for the terribly long email… but I’m really flummoxed at this  
point. Any ideas on how to further debug this? Or ways of  
convincing Site5 that it’s really their problem?  
Thanks!  
Matt

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/burrowsm)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 1:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241/2 "2007-04-30T01:10:49Z")

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I am actually able to get Radiant to run with no trouble at all on my  
Site5 account. Firstly, you don’t have to run script/server since you  
are running fastcgi. just point to the site and it should kick in. It  
looks as though you are running in a subdirectory too, and that would  
mean you have to declare your home directory in the application. (You  
could also set up a 3rd level domain.) Another thing that has caused  
me annoyance in the past is the line endings in my database.yml file.  
Make sure they are unix line endings and not windows ones.

–  
Al Steffen

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/burrowsm)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 4:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241/3 "2007-04-30T04:53:01Z")

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> It looks as though you are running in a subdirectory too, and that  
> would  
> mean you have to declare your home directory in the application. (You  
> could also set up a 3rd level domain.)

Where (and how) do I set the home directory? I installed it to ~/  
radiant/ and created a symbolic link in public\_html that points to  
the public folder. I’ve also tried installing radiant directly into  
public\_html, making a domain pointer to the public directory, as well  
as making public\_html itself a symbolic link to ~/radiant/public.  
None of which worked.

I really wasn’t running ./script/server – I was just frustrated  
trying to get fcgi working and wanted to make sure that the app  
actually worked (I realize it’s a big no-no on a shared box).

Matt

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/burrowsm)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 9:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241/4 "2007-04-30T09:23:13Z")

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Thanks for the links, Mohit. I bookmarked that wiki – it looks like  
a good source of info. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the magic potion for  
me this time.

I’ve done a bit more playing around and trying to narrow down the  
candidates for failure. It can’t be the database, any of the non-cgi  
config files, or ruby itself – the app works from ./script/server.  
The cgi scripts all point to ruby correctly, and are identical to a  
working rails app. I really don’t think my .gemrc or  
my .bash\_profile are screwed up… both have correct directories for  
the gem path and home.

Does Radiant have any gem dependencies (or other external  
dependencies)? What are they? Could one of those on my server be  
out of date? The fcgi gem is version 0.8.7 – that’s the latest one.

\*\*\*Ooh, dropping into ./script/console throws an error: /home/  
user\_name/gems/gems/radiant-0.6.0/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/…/…/  
activesupport/lib/active\_support/dependencies.rb:263:in  
`load\_missing\_constant’:NameError: uninitialized constant  
ActionController::Assertions::ResponseAssertions

Here’s the (condensed) output of gem list, for what it’s worth:

> BlueCloth (1.0.0)  
> id3lib-ruby (0.5.0)  
> radiant (0.6.0)  
> shipping (1.5.0)  
> xml-simple (1.0.11)  
> Thanks again for your help!  
> Matt

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/burrowsm)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 4:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241/5 "2007-04-30T04:57:01Z")

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Matt B. wrote:

> as making public\_html itself a symbolic link to ~/radiant/public.  
> None of which worked.
> 
> I really wasn’t running ./script/server – I was just frustrated  
> trying to get fcgi working and wanted to make sure that the app  
> actually worked (I realize it’s a big no-no on a shared box).
> 
> Matt

Hi Matt

This doesn’t directly answer your question, but I find the  
RailsPlayground guides very useful whenever I deploy. (I use their  
service as well as another one, and the guide basically applies to  
both).

This is the one about using Rails:  
[http://wiki.railsplayground.com/railsplayground/show/How+To+Use+Rails+at+RailsPlayground](http://wiki.railsplayground.com/railsplayground/show/How+To+Use+Rails+at+RailsPlayground)

and this is one about using FCGI:  
[http://wiki.railsplayground.com/railsplayground/show/How+To+use+FastCGI](http://wiki.railsplayground.com/railsplayground/show/How+To+use+FastCGI)

Follow the 2 in sequence.  
Hope this helps you.  
Cheers  
Mohit.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@burrowsm](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/burrowsm)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 3:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-deploying-radiant-on-a-shared-host/93241/6 "2007-05-04T03:05:25Z")

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Haha! I figured it out last night. I simply needed to add the  
following two lines to my environment.rb file:

ENV[‘GEM\_PATH’] = ‘/home/username/gems:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8’  
ENV[‘HOME’] = ‘home/username’

I wrote up the complete instructions that I used to get it working on  
the wiki. I hope this helps those of you trying to install on  
Site5. (I imagine it should work with many other shared hosts, too  
– nothing is too proprietary.)

Matt