Ruby on Rails
OS X with lighttpd

• Setting up a local development environment on OS X
• Installing lighttpd on OS X

Note: You can either install the following from source or build it with something like Darwinports, which has the option of installing everything under /usr/local if you like.

1. Install MySQL
   There is an OS X installer which comes with a handy preference pane for starting/stopping the server. Once you have it installed you will want to add this to your path:
   

   /usr/local/mysql/bin/

2. Install Ruby
   If you’ve got Tiger, then you’re good to go since it’s builtin. Skip to the “Install RubyGems step.” Otherwise, there’s a handy Ruby Installer available. Grab it and run the installer. (Optionally, install it with Darwinports).
3. Move the default Ruby
   At this point you’ll have two versions of ruby so you might want to rename your older version like this:
   

   sudo mv /usr/bin/ruby /usr/bin/ruby16

4. Install Rubygems
   Grab the latest rubygems and run the following (adjusted for your version):
   

   
   tar zxvf rubygems-0.8.4.tgz
   cd rubygems-0.8.4
   ruby setup.rb
   

5. Install Rails
   From here it’s easy to install all kinds of ruby apps like rails. To install the latest stable rails and mysql connector just type:
   

   sudo gem install mysql rails

   
   and say “Y” to their dependencies.
6. Install lighttpd
   Get the latest Lighttpd. Compile it with these options:
   

   ./configure --with-openssl

   
   (Optionally, you can again use Darwinports).
7. Configure lighttpd
   I have a simple config file and it works for simple vhosts out of my Sites/rails directory.
   

   
   server.port = 8080
   server.bind = "127.0.0.1" 
   server.event-handler = "freebsd-kqueue" # *important osx/freebsd only option *
   server.username = "www" 
   server.groupname = "www" 
   server.document-root = "/Users/USER/Sites/rails" 
   server.errorlog      = "/Users/USER/Sites/rails/log/server.log" 
   server.modules = ( "mod_rewrite", "mod_fastcgi", "mod_simple_vhost" )
   server.indexfiles         = ( "dispatch.fcgi", "index.php", "index.html" )
    # simple virtual hosting
   simple-vhost.server-root   = "/Users/USER/Sites/rails/" 
   simple-vhost.default-host  = "dev.example.com" 
   simple-vhost.document-root = "public" 
    # dev.example.com vhost
   $HTTP["host"] == "dev.example.com" {
     server.document-root = "/Users/USER/Sites/rails/dev.example.com/public/" 
     accesslog.filename   = "/Users/USER/Sites/rails/log/access.log" 
   
     # rails stuff
       fastcgi.server = ( ".fcgi" =>
       ( "localhost" =>
           ( "socket" => "/tmp/dev.example.com.socket",
           "bin-path" => "/Users/USER/Sites/rails/dev.example.com/public/dispatch.fcgi" 
       )))
   }
   
   # mimetype mapping
   mimetype.assign             = (
     ".pdf"          =>      "application/pdf",
     ".gif"          =>      "image/gif",
     ".jpg"          =>      "image/jpeg",
     ".jpeg"         =>      "image/jpeg",
     ".png"          =>      "image/png",
     ".html"         =>      "text/html",
     ".txt"          =>      "text/plain",
     ".css"          =>      "text/css",
     )
   
   

   
   If you want to run it on port 80 remember to turn off Apache. You can shut it off with:
   

   /System/Library/Startup Items/Apache/Apache stop

8. Add “virtual hosts” to /etc/hosts
   Finally, add a few “virtual” sites to
   /etc/hosts. For example, to get dev.mynewrailsapp.com working add:
   

   127.0.0.1       dev.mynewrailsapp.com

   
   This way you can get your browser to point at localhost instead of contacting the remote server.