Getting Ruby on Rails to work on IIS 7.5
August 10, 2011 8:41 AM Subscribe
I've been tasked with moving a Ruby on Rails website from our ubuntu server that is being retired to a Windows 2008 server running IIS 7.5. Easy right?
So far I haven't even been able to get a basic ruby test page to show up. I used Helicon Zoo to install Ruby on Rails and get a default application set up and a have a website pointing to that app but whenever I try to view I get a 500 server error. I should have all the needed gems installed. What do I have to do to even get the basic test page to show up?
I've gone through a handful of posts and threads on other sites about setting up Rails on IIS but so far none of them have really help. Most of this ruby stuff goes over my head as I'm normally just a PHP/WordPress developer and this is my first exposure to ruby. How do I proceed from here?
So far I haven't even been able to get a basic ruby test page to show up. I used Helicon Zoo to install Ruby on Rails and get a default application set up and a have a website pointing to that app but whenever I try to view I get a 500 server error. I should have all the needed gems installed. What do I have to do to even get the basic test page to show up?
I've gone through a handful of posts and threads on other sites about setting up Rails on IIS but so far none of them have really help. Most of this ruby stuff goes over my head as I'm normally just a PHP/WordPress developer and this is my first exposure to ruby. How do I proceed from here?
Response by poster: I hadn't thought about that. Virtualizing it might be a good option to get this going now. But long term I should really probably just learn how to do Ruby on Rails.
posted by cirrostratus at 8:53 AM on August 10, 2011
posted by cirrostratus at 8:53 AM on August 10, 2011
Response by poster: The server is already set up with IIS and has several websites already running on it. Too late and not really my decision to make that change. Although, if I could run apache on the same machine without disturbing the current IIS set up that might help. Is that even possible?
posted by cirrostratus at 8:59 AM on August 10, 2011
posted by cirrostratus at 8:59 AM on August 10, 2011
It's possible, but I'm not a server admin, so I don't know if it's advisable, it probably wouldn't be any more difficult to configure than virtualizing it. I just wouldn't be super happy running rails on IIS, personally.
posted by empath at 9:04 AM on August 10, 2011
posted by empath at 9:04 AM on August 10, 2011
Best answer: Is it completely necessary to retire the Ubuntu server? ie, is the server not performing adequately, or is this some policy coming from the top down?
How much traffic does this application get? Is it an external site?
This feels like one of those nightmare cases where you have to spend an absurd amount of time getting it done when it would ultimately be cheaper to just buy a new machine, install Ubuntu and be done in an afternoon. You can get a bottom line Dell PowerEdge server for less than $500. It doesn't take that long for developer and system admin costs to get to $500.
Otherwise, I'd go with the virtualization route suggested by MikeWarot or attempting to run Apache alongside IIS. The mere thought of getting a production ready Rails app running in IIS has me near hives :)
posted by ndfine at 11:25 AM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
How much traffic does this application get? Is it an external site?
This feels like one of those nightmare cases where you have to spend an absurd amount of time getting it done when it would ultimately be cheaper to just buy a new machine, install Ubuntu and be done in an afternoon. You can get a bottom line Dell PowerEdge server for less than $500. It doesn't take that long for developer and system admin costs to get to $500.
Otherwise, I'd go with the virtualization route suggested by MikeWarot or attempting to run Apache alongside IIS. The mere thought of getting a production ready Rails app running in IIS has me near hives :)
posted by ndfine at 11:25 AM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: ndfine, thanks for talking me into not doing this. We're just going to rebuild the site's simple backend in something else rather than going through the hassle of ruby on rails on windows.
posted by cirrostratus at 12:57 PM on August 10, 2011
posted by cirrostratus at 12:57 PM on August 10, 2011
Yeah, Rails and Windows don't play very well. Rather than reworking the back-end, could you make something like Heroku work for you? No server to maintain, and you can add and remove capacity easily as you need it.
posted by duien at 2:45 PM on August 10, 2011
posted by duien at 2:45 PM on August 10, 2011
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posted by MikeWarot at 8:50 AM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]