Using Databases with Ruby on Rails

To use a PostgreSQL database with your Rails project:

1

Create a new PostgreSQL database and make a note of the following:

• The database name
• The database user name
• The database user password

2

SSH into your Rails application's shell user account and run the following commands to install the PostgreSQL dependencies for Ruby (substituting myapp with your Rails application name and myproject with your Rails project name):

export APPDIR=$HOME/apps/myapp
export PROJECTDIR=$APPDIR/myproject
export GEM_HOME=$APPDIR/env
export PATH=/usr/pgsql-11/bin/:$PROJECTDIR/bin:$GEM_HOME/bin:$PATH
gem install pg

3

Configure your project environment's database.yml section as follows:

production:
  <<: *default
  adapter: postgresql
  database: your_database_name
  username: your_database_user_name
  password: your_database_user_password

Opalstack uses MariaDB for MySQL-compatible database services. To use a MariaDB database with your Rails project:

1

Create a new MariaDB database and make a note of the following:

• The database name
• The database user name
• The database user password

2

SSH into your Rails application's shell user account and run the following commands to install the PostgreSQL dependencies for Ruby (substituting myapp with your Rails application name and myproject with your Rails project name):

export APPDIR=$HOME/apps/myapp
export PROJECTDIR=$APPDIR/myproject
export GEM_HOME=$APPDIR/env
export PATH=$PROJECTDIR/bin:$GEM_HOME/bin:$PATH
gem install mysql2

3

Configure your project environment's database.yml section as follows:

production:
  <<: *default
  adapter: mysql2
  database: your_database_name
  username: your_database_user_name
  password: your_database_user_password

The CentOS operating system used by Opalstack includes a version of SQLite that is too old to be compatible with most current web applications. To work around this, Opalstack maintains a recent version of SQLite in the /opt directory on web servers.

Note: Rails applications installed via our installer use an environment variable in the start script which allows them to use the newer version of SQLite when they are running. However, when you are working with your Rails application at the command line you must configure the environment manually by setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable as shown below.

To use a SQLite database with your Rails project:

1

SSH into your Rails application's shell user account and configure your shell environment to recognize the updated

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/lib

2

Configure your project environment's database.yml section as follows, substituting db/production.sqlite3 with the path to your SQLite database file:

production:
  <<: *default
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: db/production.sqlite3