Install Tracks 2.0 on Ubuntu 11.04 minimal setup

Installing Tracks 2.0 on Ubuntu 11.04

This is a guide to get a minimal version of tracks running on Ubuntu 11.04 (natty). This requires no apache, no lighttp, and no mongrel setup. Hence, the setup also will not scale, if you intend to support multiple users.

Getting RoR

We first have to install the necessary packages for running RoR:

sudo aptitude install ruby build-essential libopenssl-ruby ruby1.8-dev
sudo apt-get install rubygems1.8
sudo gem install bundler
sudo apt-get install ruby1.8-dev ruby1.8 ri1.8 rdoc1.8 irb1.8 libreadline-ruby1.8 libruby1.8 libopenssl-ruby
sudo apt-get install libxslt-dev libxml2-dev
sudo apt-get install sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev

Getting the Source Code

We now get the latest source code for tracks:

git clone https://github.com/TracksApp/tracks.git

Getting the bundle gems

Tracks needs a set of ruby gems. The Gemfile specifies them. There are problems with two specific ones: ZenTest and hoe. ZenTest can be easily fixed by requiring version 4.6.0:

gem "ZenTest", "=4.6.0"

For hoe, you can fix it by uncommenting it. The test suite will not work though.

If you need only either mysql or sqlite for Tracks, then you will have to edit the Gemfile and comment out either gem "sqlite3" or gem "mysql".

Install the remaining gems by calling bundle:

export PATH=/var/lib/gems/1.8/bin:$PATH
bundle install

Note: If you're installing behind Apache, any gems specified in the Gemfile as coming from git will NOT be recognized by Passenger and you will get an exception that it has not been downloaded. The workaround for this Passenger bug is the following:

bundle pack
bundle install --path vendor/cache

More details can be found in this forum post.

Setting up the Database

The minimal install uses sqlite3. This eliminates the need for installing and running mysql. You need to create a configuration file in config/database.yml. It can look like the one below, however, you might want to alter the paths to the sqlite databases.

development:
  adapter: sqlite3 
  database: /tmp/tracks-devel.sq3

test: &TEST
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: ":memory:"

production:
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: /tmp/tracks-production.sq3

cucumber:
  <<: *TEST

selenium:
  <<: *TEST

Create your config/site.yml file from the template config/site.yml.tmpl.

Initialize the Database

After creating the database, you need to initialize the database for the production system. You can also initialize it for the development system, however, for practical use, the production system is sufficient:

rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

Starting the Server

The easiest way for running tracks is using ruby's server. This eliminates the need for configuring apache, mongrel, etc. Just run the server with:

script/server -e production

Done

Your system should now be up and running. Try to access the website: http://localhost:3000