How to deploy Ruby on Rails Application on Amazon EC2

Hello guys,

I am using Ubuntu 10.04, Rails 2.3.8 and Ruby 1.8.7. I want to deploy my rails application on Amazon EC2. But before that we have to create instance on Amazon and configure it. So I will show you how to do this.

First of all I am not using ec2onrails gem because it isn’t maintained regularly and supports old AMI . Then I assume that you are somewhat familiar with Amazon terms and you have account there. If not then please do it first.

After creating account and undestanding Amazon terms you need to have following things which you can find from Security Credentials tab from Here.

1) Amazon Account Number
2) Access Key ID
3) Secret Acsess Key
4) Amazon x.509 Certificate
5) Private Key Certificate

Now download developer tools from Here and then extract it and put it in some folder.

I put certificates and developer tools in /home/pulkit/cert folder.

now install Java if you don’t have.

So after downloading all necessary things, let’s start for setup.

# Set Java Path
1) export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/
2) export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

# Set Private Key
3) export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=/home/pulkit/cert/pk-PUL4MOWVQI4IOOKRV3BRJC2MHXJ2KKIO.pem

# Set Certificate
4) export EC2_CERT=/home/pulkit/cert/cert-PUL4MOWVQI4IOOKRV3BRJC2MHXJ2KKIO.pem

# Set api-tools
5) export EC2_HOME=/home/pulkit/cert/ec2-api-tools-1.3-62308
6) export PATH=$EC2_HOME/bin:$PATH

# add keypair to Amazon
# Save it in /home/pulkit/.ssh folder with name “id_rsa-rails-keypair”
7) ec2-add-keypair rails-keypair

# create instance by choosing AMI
# There are lots of AMI available in the market. Choose it as per your requirement. To see list of AMI and it’s details, visit Here.
8 ) ec2-run-instances ami-66e2130f -k rails-keypair

# See details of instance
# change i-9f57h52f3 with your instance id. You will get it when you will run above command.
9) ec2-describe-instances i-9f57h52f3

# Allow Port 22 and 80
# Unfortunately If you will get error
# “Client.InvalidPermission.Duplicate: The permission ’0.0.0.0/0-1-22-22′ has already been authorized on the specified group” for ec2-authorize default -p 22
# OR
# “Client.InvalidPermission.Duplicate: The permission ’0.0.0.0/0-1-80-80′ has already been authorized on the specified group” for ec2-authorize default -p 80
# it means that your ports are already allowed. You can move to next steps.
10) ec2-authorize default -p 22
11) ec2-authorize default -p 80

# If you are using git repository then copy your id_rsa.pub(github key) to Amazon Instance.
# As per your instance, username can be different(root or ubuntu). Make sure that you set name as “authorized_keys2″ not “authorized_keys”. Because ”authorized_keys2″ is already there.
12) scp -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa-rails-keypair ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ubuntu@ec2-XX-XX-XXX-XXX.compute-1.amazonaws.com:.ssh/authorized_keys2

# login to Amazon Instance using SSH command.
13) ssh -i /home/pulkit/.ssh/id_rsa-rails-keypair ubuntu@ec2-XX-XX-XXX-XXX.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Now you should be in Amazon Instance. Install all necessary packages and gems as per your requirements.

In next post I will show you how to deploy rails application using capistrano on Amazon Instance.

Thanks & Regards,
Pulkit J. Pancholi

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CSS is king. I’ve seen many CSS files that act as a dumping ground for every random bit of style – even to the point of duplicating styles. Cleaning up and consolidating your CSS will give you a good view of what you have and what you are missing in your stylesheet. If you have more than one stylesheet, consider combining them into one global stylesheet. It takes less resources to load styles you aren’t using than to load additional stylesheets. Every stylesheet should have the basic elements at the top to redefine the default browser styles based on your UI or Theme. These include the body, links, h1, h2, h3, form, img, div, p, table, and form elements to name a few. I like to start out with zeroing out margin, padding, and border styles followed with defining the body tag. By defining the body style, we set the groundwork for our site. As a rule of thumb, this is where you will set the default font size, font family, font weight, font color, and background color. We then follow this with a definition of the styles intended for all of the other elements we’ll use on your site. Being able to keep a clean and consistent stylesheet will go greatly towards creating a stable UI.

Recycle as a way of life. It may seem monotonous, but one of the keys to a consistent UI is that elements look and act in a similar manner. Forms should be laid out like every other form, tables like every other table, and lists like every other list. When users are presented with a form, they should be given a clear path to submitting the form. Elements of the UI should also be familiar to your users. It’s great to be unique, but users have become accustomed to seeing things, like the footer at the bottom, the header at the top, and identifiable navigation in the obvious and familiar places. If you use widgets and third party functionality, make sure the style fits your UI. Otherwise it will stick out and distract from the flow of your UI.

Tables aren’t dead.
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Search engines count.
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• Improving availability and reducing out-of stock situations
• Reducing overall cost and driving sound financial returns
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Because of global economic trends, energy consumption awareness, increasing customer empowerment, changing customer behavior and several other factors, future supply chain systems will be required to take the following into account:

• Collaborative approaches for warehousing, transportation and information sharing
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• Flexible planning at a raw material level to cater to fluctuating customer demand and trends
• Reduced energy consumption and traffic

When the game changes, so do the rules that measure it. This includes KPIs that measure current supply chain design, for example, inventory availability, fulfillment efficiency and cost reduction; as well as financial KPIs like ROI, gross margin, etc. These will all be augmented with energy consumption, traffic congestion, infrastructure utilization, information and systems utilization, etc. Future supply chain systems will provide clear benefits to society, industries, companies and end consumers who are doing their part to help make the planet a better place to live and thrive.

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