Deploying a Ruby on Rails application on Scaleway

Reviewed on 08 January 2024 • Published on 20 January 2020

compute
server
Ruby
Rails
Scaleway-Elements
nginx
rbenv
puma
PostgreSQL
systemd
vps

Ruby on Rails is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby and released under the MIT License.

The popularity of Ruby on Rails emerged in the years 2000 and was greatly influenced by web application development. The framework encourages and facilitates the use of common web standards such as JSON, HTML, CSS and JavaScript for user interfacing.

This article describes basic steps to set up deployment-ready VPS instance using Capistrano with RVM, Puma as application server and Nginx as reverse proxy. Let’s assume we already have a working rails application, hosted on a remote git repository.

In this tutorial you will learn basic steps to configure a deployment-ready machine using Capistrano, rbenv, Puma as application server and Nginx as a reverse proxy. We assume that you have already a working Ruby on Rails application and deploy it using the following stack on an Instance:

nginx as the reverse proxy
PostgreSQL as the database
puma for the Ruby concurrent web server
rbenv for managing several Ruby versions
Capistrano as deployment utility
Ubuntu 22.04 as operating system and Systemd for keeping processes up.

Before you start

To complete the actions presented below, you must have:

A Scaleway account logged into the console
Owner status or IAM permissions allowing you to perform actions in the intended Organization
An SSH key
An Instance or Elastic Metal server running on Ubuntu Focal Fossa (20.04 LTS)
sudo privileges or access to the root user

Installing rbenv and Node.js

Ruby on Rails needs to have a ruby runtime to run. It could be tempting to just install the ruby version provided by the distribution.

The problem with that is that this version might be different from the one we currently need.

Because we want to have the liberty to choose the version of ruby we want, we will install a dedicated ruby version manager called rbenv.

This version will also come with a modern ruby installation, but you are free to change it to fit your needs.

The installation is done using the apt package manager of Ubuntu. Update the apt package cache prior to installation, to make sure to install the latest available version in the Ubuntu repository:

root@instance:~# apt update
root@instance:~# apt install -y rbenv

Verify that the installation of rbenv and ruby was successful:

root@instance:~# rbenv --version
rbenv 1.1.2
root@instance:~# ruby --version
ruby 3.0.2p107 (2021-07-07 revision 0db68f0233) [x86_64-linux-gnu]

In this tutorial we will use the default version of ruby, but you are free to download yours to fit your needs. If you need a more recent version of rbenv, instructions can be found on the official installer page.

Installing the Node.js runtime

Ruby on Rails requires having nodejs installed to compile certain web assets. If you do not need a particular version of nodejs for your deployment you can use the default one provided by the operating system.

Install nodejs using the apt package manager:

root@instance:~# apt install nodejs

To check if the installation has been successful, run the nodejs --version command. The output should look similar to this:

root@instance:~# nodejs --version
v12.22.9

Creating a non-admin user

Create a non-administrative user that will be able to run programs without having administrative privileges. We will call this user deploy.

Create the user by running the following command as root:

root@instance:~# adduser deploy

To check that the user creation was successful, log into the user account using the su command and check the installed ruby version:

root@instance:~# su - deploy
deploy@instance:~$ ruby --version
ruby 3.0.2p107 (2021-07-07 revision 0db68f0233) [x86_64-linux-gnu]

Installing and configuring of PostgreSQL

Ruby on Rails application typically uses an SQL database for data persistence. In this step we will install all the dependencies required to have a database running.

Install the default PostgreSQL provided by the operating system using the apt package manager.
```
root@instance:~# apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev
```

Check if the installation was successful, by checking the status of the postgresql service:

root@instance:~# service postgresql status
● postgresql.service - PostgreSQL RDBMS
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/postgresql.service; enabled; vendor pr>
    Active: active (exited) since Mon 2024-01-08 10:23:54 UTC; 12s ago
    Process: 5602 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Main PID: 5602 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 1ms
Jan 08 10:23:54 scw-gallant-neumann systemd[1]: Starting PostgreSQL RDBMS...
Jan 08 10:23:54 scw-gallant-neumann systemd[1]: Finished PostgreSQL RDBMS.

Create an unprivileged role and database so that rails can connect to the database. ```

Call this role deploy, just like our username on the instance:

Use su to enter commands as postgres user, which is the default administrator of PostgreSQL:

root@instance:~# su - postgres

Once logged as the Postgres user, create a database for the user deploy.

Enter a strong password, when prompted. It will be your database password.

postgres@rails:~$ createuser --pwprompt deploy
Enter password for new role:
Enter it again:
postgres@instance:~$ createdb -O deploy my_rails_app
postgres@instance:~$ exit

Once this is done, you can check that it worked by using the following command:

root@instance:~# psql --user deploy -h localhost -d my_rails_app
Password for user deploy:
psql (14.10 (Ubuntu 14.10-0ubuntu0.22.04.1))
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
Type "help" for help.
my_rails_app=>

Above is the shell of the database, ready to receive queries. Exit it by typing \q.

Installing nginx and puma

Now we need to add a reverse proxy and a web server to our deployment. There are two parts: The first part will be the reverse proxy which is called nginx and will be the process of receiving all the incoming HTTP traffic. Then it will route this traffic to one or several application servers.

The second step is the application server. It is a ruby gem called puma that will run the code. puma is provided by default in the recent version of rails. So installing the dependencies of our project will install puma too.

Install the nginx server using the following command via the apt package manager:

root@instance:~# apt install nginx

Configure nginx to pass all the traffic to the relevant ruby server by creating a file called /etc/nginx/sites-available/my_rails_app. Open it in a text editor and enter the following content:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/my_rails_app

upstream my_rails_app {
  # This socket file is created by your rails application
  server unix:///home/vagrant/my_rails_app/tmp/puma.sock;
}
server {
  listen 80;
  server_name my_rails_app.com;
  # ~2 seconds is often enough for most folks to parse HTML/CSS and
  # retrieve needed images/icons/frames, connections are cheap in
  # nginx so increasing this is generally safe...
  keepalive_timeout 5;
  # path for static files
  root /home/deploy/my_rails_app/public;
  # this rewrites all the requests to the maintenance.html
  # page if it exists in the doc root. This is for capistrano's
  # disable web task
  if (-f $document_root/maintenance.html) {
    rewrite  ^(.*)$  /maintenance.html last;
    break;
  }
  location / {
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    # If the file exists as a static file serve it directly without
    # running all the other rewrite tests on it
    if (-f $request_filename) {
      break;
    }
    # check for index.html for directory index
    # if it's there on the filesystem then rewrite
    # the url to add /index.html to the end of it
    # and then break to send it to the next config rules.
    if (-f $request_filename/index.html) {
      rewrite (.*) $1/index.html break;
    }
    # this is the meat of the rack page caching config
    # it adds .html to the end of the url and then checks
    # the filesystem for that file. If it exists, then we
    # rewrite the url to have explicit .html on the end
    # and then send it on its way to the next config rule.
    # if there is no file on the fs then it sets all the
    # necessary headers and proxies to our upstream pumas
    if (-f $request_filename.html) {
      rewrite (.*) $1.html break;
    }
    if (!-f $request_filename) {
      proxy_pass http://my_rails_app;
      break;
    }
  }
  # This should work as it gets the filenames with query strings that Rails provides.
  # However, there's a chance it could break the ajax calls.
  location ~* \.(ico|css|gif|jpe?g|png|js)(\?[0-9]+)?$ {
    expires max;
    break;
  }
  # Error pages
  # error_page 500 502 503 504 /500.html;
  location = /500.html {
    root /home/deploy/my_rails_app/public;
  }
}

Save the file and exit the text editor.

Create a symbolic link to enable the server block:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/my_rails_app /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Check the configuration file for syntax errors using the following command:

root@instance:~# nginx -T

Reload the nginx service to activate the new configuration

root@instance:~# service nginx reload

Configuring systemd to manage the puma process

We do not yet have a puma server running. Once this server runs, a socket will show up on /home/vagrant/my_rails_app/tmp/puma.sock. nginx will forward the incoming request to this socket and puma will answer over it.

To ensure that puma is running and is restarted in case of a crash we will use a systemd configuration file:

Create a new service file and open it in a text editor:

root@instance:~# nano /etc/systemd/system/puma.service

Copy the following content into the file:

[Unit]
Description=Puma HTTP Server
After=network.target
# Uncomment for socket activation (see below)
# Requires=puma.socket
[Service]
# Foreground process (do not use --daemon in ExecStart or config.rb)
Type=simple
# Preferably configure a non-privileged user
User=vagrant
# The path to your application code root directory.
# Also replace the "<YOUR_APP_PATH>" place holders below with this path.
# Example /home/username/myapp
WorkingDirectory=/home/vagrant/my_rails_app
# Helpful for debugging socket activation, etc.
# Environment=PUMA_DEBUG=1
# SystemD will not run puma even if it is in your path. You must specify
# an absolute URL to puma. For example /usr/local/bin/puma
# Alternatively, create a binstub with `bundle binstubs puma --path ./sbin` in the WorkingDirectory
ExecStart=/home/vagrant/.rbenv/shims/puma -C ./config/puma.rb
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save the file and exit the text editor.

Enable the service so it can be started automatically during system boot:

root@instance:~# systemctl status puma.service

Start the service manually:

root@instance:~# systemctl start puma.service

Check if the service is working:

root@instance:~# systemctl status puma.service

Deploying my code on the server

The next step will be to deploy your local code. For that we will use Capistrano.

In the Gemfile of your rails application add the following gems:

gem 'capistrano', '~> 3.11'
gem 'capistrano-rails', '~> 1.4'
gem 'capistrano-rbenv', '~> 2.1', '>= 2.1.4'

To push a new version of your code, run the following command:

cap production deploy

Going further

In this tutorial we only installed basic dependencies, but there are many other services that could be installed, such as elasticsearch, redis, and more.

Tip

All the steps made in this tutorial could be made on a local virtual machine.