Install Refinery CMS (Ruby On Rails) on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 | 18.10

Refinery CMS is probably the most popular content management system (CMS) for Ruby on Rails. It makes it super easy to develop and design static websites and is the leading open source CMS on the Ruby on Rails framework.

You can use Refinery CMS to create your personal or business websites in minutes by creating markup pages and content…. Refinery CMS offers features that may not be available to other PHP based CMS, like WordPress Joomla or Drupal…

For one you don’t have to worry about comments management and frequent updates… All you do is write your content and its instantly published… Other features like permalinks, categories, pages, posts, and custom layouts are all top content and SEO friendly…

For more about Refinery CMS, check its homepage.

This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install Refinery CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and 18.10 systems.

These are the packages we’re going to be setting up.

• Ruby version 2.5.3
• Rails version 5.2.1
• MySQL Server

Step 1: Install Ruby

To install Ruby and Rails on Ubuntu, you’ll need  to install some dependencies. To make that happen, install Node.js and Yarn repositories. This will make installing the dependencies easier.

First install these curl and git packages.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install curl git

Than run the commands below to add Node.js and Yarn repositories and keys to your system. Then install some core packages to get your environment going.

curl -sL  | sudo -E bash -
curl -sS  | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb  stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs yarn zlib1g-dev build-essential libpq-dev libssl-dev libreadline-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libffi-dev

When you’re done. continue below:

After adding the repositories and installing necessary packages above, install Ruby with your local profile settings using rbenv. you’ll then use rbenv to install ruby-build.

cd ~/
git clone  ~/.rbenv
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL

git clone  ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL

After setting up your local profile. run the commands below to install Ruby version 2.5.3. If a newer version is available, replace the version number to that. vist this site to find out Ruby latest versions.

rbenv install 2.5.3
rbenv global 2.5.3

To verify that Ruby is installed, run the commands below:

ruby -v

You should see similar lines as below:

ruby 2.5.3p105 (2018-10-18 revision 65156) [x86_64-linux]

Another package management you’ll want to install is bundler. to do that, run the commands below

gem install bundler

Now run the command below after installing bundler.

rbenv rehash

Step 2: Install MySQL Server

MySQL server can be installed on Ubuntu by running the commands below:

sudo apt-get install mysql-client mysql-server libmysqlclient-dev

Step 3: Install Rails

Now that Ruby environment is set up, run the commands below to install Rails. Rails can be installed from a Node.Js. Run the commands below to install Node.js repository, then install Node.js package.

curl -sL  | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Now that Node.js is installed, run the commands below to install Rails.

gem install rails -v 5.2.1

Don’t forget to rehash your rbenv environment installing install new packages.

rbenv rehash

To verify if Rails is installed, run the commands below.

rails -v

You should see something similar to the lines below:

Rails 5.2.1

Rubygems also comes installed by default, however, it could be an old version which will cause problems. Update using:

gem update --system

Also, in the past, we face to a RDoc bug, you should update it as well. also install ImageMagick.

gem install rdoc
brew install imagemagick

Step 4: Install Refinery CMS

Now that your environment is ready, run the commands below to install Refinery CMS and build your first site.  Next, run the commands below.

The best way to use this guide is to follow each step as it happens. No code or step needed to make this example application has been left out, so you can literally follow along step-by-step.

To begin, open a terminal, navigate to home folder where you have rights to create files, and type:

refinerycms rickrockstar

Next change into the Refinery CMS folder and install there.

cd rickrockstar

After a while, necessary packages should be installed. When you’re done, run the commands below to create an admin user and install Refinery CMS.

Finally, run the commands below to start the server.

rails server

Now open your browser and browse to the hostname follow by port # 3000

You should see Refinery CMS home page.

Logon to the backend using the admin address and password.

You’ll be prompted to create an admin account. the first user. After that, Refinery should be installed and ready to use.

More documentations for Refinery CMS can be found at the link below:

Congratulation! You have successfully installed Refinery CMS platform on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 | 18.10

You may also like the post below: