Once in a while, I catch the startup bug due to people like Sean Burgess.  So this post is based on hours of frustration that I had from setting up multiple osx machines to deploy rails.  Much of this is for my own reference and borrows heavily from these sites and my own attempts on 4 different macs:

1. http://www.frederico-araujo.com/2010/08/19/installing-rails-enviroment-on-snow-leopard-with-macports-mysql-and-modrails-passenger/
2. http://2tbsp.com/content/install_apache_2_and_php_5_macports
3. https://trac.macports.org/wiki/howto/MAMP

1. Preparing System

In general, just easiest to start from scratch if you haven’t used ports in a while (or have never used it). Also make sure that web sharing is OFF under System Preferences as we are going to install the apache version from macports instead.

sudo rm -rf \
    /opt/local \
    /Applications/DarwinPorts \
    /Applications/MacPorts \
    /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.* \
    /Library/Receipts/DarwinPorts*.pkg \
    /Library/Receipts/MacPorts*.pkg \
    /Library/StartupItems/DarwinPortsStartup \
    /Library/Tcl/darwinports1.0 \
    /Library/Tcl/macports1.0 \
    ~/.macports

1.1 Download and Install Xcode & Macports

http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html

Download Page: http://www.macports.org/install.php

1.3.1 Update macports

sudo port -v selfupdate
port upgrade outdated

2. Apache, php5, mysql & PhpMyAdmin

2.1 Install Apache, php5, PhpMyAdmin and misc

sudo port -v install phpmyadmin php5 php5-mysql apache2 mysql5-server mysql5 memcached libmemcached wget sqlite3 +apache2 +pear

2.2 Make apache, mysql autoload on startup

sudo -u mysql mysql_install_db5
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.apache2.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql5.plist
sudo port load memcached

2.3 Activating PHP5

cd /opt/local/apache2/modules
sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apxs -a -e -n "php5" libphp5.so

2.4 Add index.php to the dir_module directive

Open /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf in your favorite text editor.

<IfModule dir_module>
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
</IfModule>

2.5 Add mod_php and phpmyadmin

Also, at the end of the httpd.conf file, add the following lines so that Apache includes the mod_php and phpmyadmin file

#Include PHP configurations
Include conf/extra/mod_php.conf

# Local access to phpmyadmin installation
Include conf/extra/httpd-phpmyadmin.conf

Set up your PHP configuration files

cd /opt/local/etc/php5
sudo cp php.ini-development php.ini

Setup the MySQL default socket to use the CentOS MySQL socket location by editing php.ini

pdo_mysql.default_socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
mysql.default_socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

2.6 Building my.cnf and changing the MySQL default socket to conform to CentOS (optional)

Open /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf in your favorite text editor. Add a new mimetype so that Apache will direct files ending in .php to the PHP module for processing. Add the following within the block. Without this, all you’ll see is the text of your PHP scripts

sudo cp /opt/local/share/mysql5/mysql/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
sudo mkdir /var/lib/mysql/
sudo chown -R _mysql:_mysql /var/lib/mysql

Change the TWO lines in /etc/my.cnf that says

socket = /opt/local/var/run/mysql5/mysqld.sock

to

socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

2.7 Create the phpmyadmin configuration file

create a file /opt/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-phpmyadmin.conf containing this text:

AliasMatch ^/phpmyadmin(?:/)?(/.*)?$ "/opt/local/www/phpmyadmin$1"

<Directory "/opt/local/www/phpmyadmin">
  Options -Indexes
  AllowOverride None
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all

  LanguagePriority en de es fr ja ko pt-br ru
  ForceLanguagePriority Prefer Fallback
</Directory>

2.8 Setup aliases to control the two services

sudo  ln -s /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl /usr/sbin/apache2
sudo ln -s /opt/local/share/mysql5/mysql/mysql.server /usr/sbin/mysql.server
sudo apache2 restart
sudo mysql.server restart

2.9 Setup the mysql root password

Set the MySQL root password. Where is your new desired root password. You will be prompted for your existing password (“Enter password:”); since it’s empty, just press Return.

mysqladmin5 -u root -p password <new-password>

Then log into the mysql connection and use these commands (replacing your root password of course) to update all the root accoutns

shell> mysql -u root -p
mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = PASSWORD('newpwd')
    ->     WHERE User = 'root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

2.10 Test the PHP server

Make an index.php in /opt/local/apache2/htdocs and put the following in it:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

2.11 Install and Test phpmyadmin

First make these changes in /opt/local/www/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = WHATEVER YOU WANT THIS TO BE

You should see quite a bit of information regarding your php installation.

3. Ruby, Rubygems, Rails, other gems

3.1 Install Ruby from macports

sudo port -v install ruby

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-08 patchlevel 302) [x86_64-darwin10]

3.2 download rubygems from http://rubygems.org/pages/download

cd /tmp
wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
tar -xvf rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.7
sudo ruby setup.rb

3.3 Install rails, rake, rspec etc.

sudo gem install rake rails thin tzinfo capistrano ruby-debug rspec mysql sqlite3-ruby

4. ImageMagick, Rmagick and mini_magick (Optional)

lets install ImageMagick with support for JPEG, TIFF, WMF, PDF, and PNG images, and for Postscript and TrueType fonts.

sudo port -v install tiff -macosx imagemagick +q8 +gs +wmf

sudo gem install mini_magick rmagick

Test rmagick

$ irb -rubygems -r RMagick
>> puts Magick::Long_version
This is RMagick 2.13.1 ($Date: 2009/12/20 02:33:33 $) Copyright (C) 2009 by Timothy P. Hunter
Built with ImageMagick 6.6.3-0 2010-08-19 Q8 http://www.imagemagick.org
Built for ruby 1.8.7
Web page: http://rmagick.rubyforge.org
Email: rmagick@rubyforge.org
=> nil

5. Passenger

5.1 Install Passenger gem

sudo gem install passenger

5.2 Check Passenger path

passenger-config --root

 -> /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15

5.3 Build passenger for apache

and don’t worry about the other steps, we will cover them directly in the guide

sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

5.4 Enable Passenger on apache:

create /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-passenger.conf and change wherever necessary for your directories.

LoadModule passenger_module /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15
PassengerRuby /opt/local/bin/ruby
PassengerMaxPoolSize 6  # maximum global rails servers
PassengerMaxInstancesPerApp 2  # maximum rails servers per application
RailsFrameworkSpawnerIdleTime 1800
RailsAppSpawnerIdleTime 600
PassengerPoolIdleTime 600
PassengerMaxRequests 1000  # after 1000 requests will restart server, to skip memory leak  

# Enabling NameBased Virtualhost
NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80

# my rails app virtual host 1
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
    ServerName my-rails-app.local
    DocumentRoot "/Users/jackpo/rails/my-rails-app/public" # change this to match your folder
    RailsEnv "development"
   <Directory /Users/jackpo/rails/my-rails-app/public>
        # change this to match your folder
        # MultiViews must be turned off
        Options -MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    # logs are optional, change this to match your folder
    CustomLog  "/Users/jackpo/rails/my-rails-app/log/access_log" combined
    ErrorLog   "/Users/jackpo/rails/my-rails-app/log/error_log"
</VirtualHost>

5.5 Enable Virtual host on apache:

Edit /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf and add this new line at the bottom:

# Include Passenger ModRails config file
Include conf/extra/httpd-passenger.conf

5.6 Add your .local domain to /etc/hosts/

edit /etc/hosts and Add this line to that file and change to the name of your choosen application

You might add as many as you want, each line for each that ServerName on your VirtualHost blocks

127.0.0.1 my-rails-app.local
127.0.0.1 myapp-xyz.local

5.6 Restart Apache

sudo apache2 restart

6. Final

go to your browser and open the url of your application http://my-rails-app.local

If it works, congratulations. If it didn’t.. uh.. try and google. I maybe able to help, but I don’t have that much time!

In the interest of anti-stealth, I’m going to publicly announce one of the for profit ventures that I am currently working on. Incidentally, what exactly happened to the NextNY anti-stealth movement? There was a lot of activity at the end of October, and then the whole movement seemingly collapsed.

Anyway, a friend and I have started exploring the idea of a new campus based venture. Many of you who are students are probably familiar with the few awkward minutes that you spend every few hours in an elevator traveling to and from class. While you are in the elevator, wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice LCD displaying current campus events that might be of interest to you, or perhaps an ad telling you about the discounted food at Chipotle down the block this week?

Our idea is exactly that, we would like to create a network of LCDs in campus elevators that would stream both campus events as well as advertisements. A well established player, Captivate Network, currently does this in the office building market. We would like to stay away from office buildings at the moment, and focus purely on college campuses (Facebook vs LinkedIn analogy?).

Since both of us are current Columbia students, in fact both BME PhD students, we have decided to use Columbia University as a pilot site. I haven’t had time to put together a powerpoint presentation yet, but I will definitely post it in the next few days. For now we are tackling several thorny issues:

• Is it even possible to do it in NY? We are currently checking the New York Fire Code. Safety code for elevators and escalators : an American national standard by the American Society for Mechanical Engineers will be our guide. Looks like I won’t need sleeping pills tonight.
• We have done some back of the envelope calculations to see whether the idea is sustainable and scalable. If we intend to get more funding, we will have to produce a full financial projection. The projection itself is of course of no great importance to either investors or us, since reality almost always deviate significantly from the projections. Though it’s important to have one anyway, if nothing else than to show that due diligence was performed.
• To start campus based businesses that depend so much on campus infrastructure, we are clearly going to need a faculty champion. We have started approaching various members of the engineering faculty, the business school faculty, as well as Columbia’s Science and Technology Ventures group to begin soliciting feedback and buy-ins. We’ve had a lot of success getting people excited about the concept, but haven’t found a champion of the project yet. If you know of a Columbia faculty who might be interested, please let me know!
• I will also begin to approach NYU and CCNY about the idea as well, in case Columbia falls through as a pilot site.
• We will clearly need a powerpoint presentation down the line. I’ll put up version 1.0 of the presentation in a few days.

Since we are still very early in our planning stages, we are open to all suggestions and ideas. Let me know if any of you have any feedback or have seen existing implementations on college campuses! If you happen to be a college student / faculty, and are interested in joining our team, shoot me an email: mail @ jackpo dot org.

All of us in the startup community have been debating whether the bubble is once again upon us. It is my strong opinion that indeed it has

Dmitry sent me this video when I told him I will be teaching Entrepreneurship next semester, check it out!