Installing on Site5

Here’s a guide on how to set up RadiantCMS in a few minutes on Site 5. I changed my shell from the default jailshell to bash by simply toggling shell access off and then back on again. I don’t know if this is required for the following (I don’t think it should, but it’s nice to be able to see the whole server).

This guide assumes you:

• Know how to use the shell
• Know how to use ssh

Install Your Own Gems

First, you need to install Radiant as a custom local gem since it is not preinstalled on Site5’s servers.

$ gem env
RubyGems Environment:
  - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.3.5
  - RUBY VERSION: 1.8.7 (2009-06-12 patchlevel 174) [i686-linux]
  - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
  - RUBY EXECUTABLE: /usr/bin/ruby
  - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /usr/bin
  - RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
    - ruby
    - x86-linux
  - GEM PATHS:
     - /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
     - /home/username/.gem/ruby/1.8
  - GEM CONFIGURATION:
     - :update_sources => true
     - :verbose => true
     - :benchmark => false
     - :backtrace => false
     - :bulk_threshold => 1000
  - REMOTE SOURCES:
     - http://gems.rubyforge.org/

Although not required for the basic installation, some of the rake tasks depend upon the shell variables $GEM_HOME and $GEM_PATH. It’s not a bad idea to add them to your .bash_profile like so:

export GEM_PATH=/home/username/.gem/ruby/1.8:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
export GEM_HOME=/home/username/.gem/ruby/1.8

It is also a good idea to add the /home/username/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin directory to your $PATH in .bash_profile, this will allow you to run ‘the radiant’ binary directly.

Great! Now this is very simple:

$ gem install radiant

Create your Radiant Application

Unpack the application using the radiant command into the directory radapp (it will create the directory if it does not exist).

radiant --database mysql radapp

Configuration

Now, you should have the new folder radapp in your current directory. Using Site5’s SiteAdmin on your domain (located at yourdomain.com/siteadmin), create the databases radiantdev, radianttest, and radiantlive (note that your username_ is prepended to all those table and user names). Create a new MySQL user radiant, and give it access to all functions on all those databases (watch out — those checkboxes to give privileges on the MySQL user page don’t mirror your current settings. To see that, you need to go to the databases page.) Once that is all completed, edit radapp/config/database.yml with those settings; the file should look something like this:

development:
   adapter: mysql
   database: username_radiantdev
   username: username_radiant
   password: pword
   host: localhost

 test:
   adapter: mysql
   database: username_radianttest
   username: username_radiant
   password: pword
   host: localhost

 production:
   adapter: mysql
   database: username_radiantlive
   username: username_radiant
   password: pword
   host: localhost

Now edit the file radapp/config/environment.rb. You need to uncomment a line and add one more, so the following line (should be the 8th line down):

# ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production'

becomes…

ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production'
ENV['GEM_PATH'] = '/home/username/.gem/ruby/1.8:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8'

Bootstrap your Database

Okay! All of the config files are setup. Now in the radiant application folder, run the rake task to bootstrap the database. Answer the prompts to your liking.

$ cd radapp/
$ rake production db:bootstrap

Setup the Symbolic Link

Just create the symlink and you’re done! From your home directory, just do this:

mv public_html public_html_bak
ln -s ~/radapp/public ~/public_html

Now point your browser to http://your.website.com/. It should be RadiantCMS! To edit pages, go to http://your.website.com/admin.

It should be possible to place that symbolic link inside your public_html folder (instead of replacing it), but in my quick testing it, I can’t seem to setup Radiant to recognize that it’s in a subdirectory. If you figure it out, add that information here.

Deploy main domain to subdirectory

Site5’s default domain points to ~/public_html/ if you currently have domain pointers pointing to ~/public_html/foldername symlinking directly to the public_html folder isn’t an option.

Here is a quick dirty work around.

edit / create ~/public_html/.htaccess

Options All
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.tld
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/symlinkfoldername/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /symlinkfoldername/$1

edit your environments.rb file & add the line

config.action_controller.relative_url_root = '/symlinkfoldername'

Here is a little explaination on what the above does.

requests to your main domain.tld are pointed to ~/public_html – This cannot be changed.
The .htaccess file redirects incomming request to the symlinked folder pointing to your public folder of your rails application.
The environments.rb file will now pick up your root url as /symlinkfoldername
If you do not edit both files you will get a 404 stating the domain.tld/symlinkfoldername doesn’t exist.

Phusion Passenger

Site5 now supports Phusion Passenger… just add the following lines to your .htaccess file to enable it.

PassengerEnabled on