Talking about configuring rails app on an Ubuntu server takes following steps on a plain slice

1) Step 1 will be to install basic ruby gems and other packages

If its a blank slice you might also need to update ur repos using

apt-get update and aptitude install build-essential before u start installing ruby and other required libraries

sudo aptitude install ruby1.8-dev ruby1.8 ri1.8 rdoc1.8 irb1.8 libreadline-ruby1.8 libruby1.8 libopenssl-ruby sqlite3 libsqlite3-ruby1.8.

2) Create simlinks

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ruby1.8 /usr/bin/ruby
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ri1.8 /usr/bin/ri
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/rdoc1.8 /usr/bin/rdoc
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/irb1.8 /usr/bin/irb

3) Install Ruby gems (Make sure you have the latest version from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126

We will use the 1.3.2 version. Get the tar version from http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/55066/rubygems-1.3.2.tgz using wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/55066/rubygems-1.3.2.tgz.

Then do  tar xzvf rubygems-1.3.2.tgz

cd  rubygems-1.3.2

sudo ruby setup.rb (to install the setup)

then do simlink sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem

4) Then install rails (most important )

gem install rails -v 2.2.2 (make sure u specify the version u want to install else it will install the latest one)

5) Next step will be database. I use MySql and so here is the procedure  for it

sudo aptitude install mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient15-dev

You will be prompted to enter password 2-3 times while the installation is on. Don’t forget to setup a password.

6) Then comes one important part which is mysql-ruby library. Most people forget this and then MySql don’t work for them.

sudo aptitude install libmysql-ruby1.8

I think that’s all for Ruby + Rails + Ruby gems + Mysql

7) Since you are using Ubuntu make sure u have installed all the essentials things using

aptitude install build-essential.

This will install cc, gcc and other core required libraries. which will help u in installing gems and configuring them. (if you haven’t done that before)

8 ) Like I said before you will now also require gem. And the most common one is ImageMagick and Rmagick you can install them using

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

sudo apt-get install libmagick9-dev

sudo gem install rmagick

These 3 steps works in most cases. If it doesn’t work for you let me know via comment and I shall help u in solving it. You may also visit my previously written blog post on http://blog.dhavalparikh.co.in/2008/02/rmagick-installation-on-ubuntu/

9) Some other important ones are capistrano and git which u might require to install. Not covering them as of now.

10) You might also require nginx for webserver (I use Nginx so I am writing about it).

sudo aptitude install nginx

This will install nginx. For more information about nginx and its configuration you may visit my previous posts on

http://blog.dhavalparikh.co.in/2008/11/nginx-configuration-expiry-headers-and-gzip-component-with-rails-nginxconf/

That’s more than what you need to run a basic rails apps. But I think these are essentials for a good rails app deployment.

You can even read more about Mongrel Clustering with Nginx on my posts which could be again a part of server configuration

http://blog.dhavalparikh.co.in/2008/11/mongrel-clustering-with-rails/

I think thats all. If you have any doubts or problems write me a comment and I shall reply u ASAP.