Setting up your Ruby development environment for Elastic Beanstalk

This chapter provides instructions to set up a Ruby development environment to test your application locally prior to deploying it to AWS Elastic Beanstalk. It also references websites that provide installation instructions for useful tools.

For common setup steps and tools that apply to all languages, see Configuring your development machine for use with Elastic Beanstalk.

To follow the procedures in this guide, you will need a command line terminal or shell to run commands. Commands are shown in listings preceded by a prompt symbol ($) and the name of the current directory, when appropriate.

~/eb-project$ this is a command
this is output

On Linux and macOS, you can use your preferred shell and package manager. On Windows you can install the Windows Subsystem for Linux to get a Windows-integrated version of Ubuntu and Bash.

For common setup steps and tools that apply to all languages, see Configuring your development machine for use with Elastic Beanstalk

Installing Ruby

Install GCC if you don't have a C compiler. On Ubuntu, use apt.

~$ sudo apt install gcc

On Amazon Linux, use yum.

~$ sudo yum install gcc

Install RVM to manage Ruby language installations on your machine. Use the commands at rvm.io to get the project keys and run the installation script.

~$ gpg2 --recv-keys key1 key2
~$ curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable

This script installs RVM in a folder named .rvm in your user directory, and modifies your shell profile to load a setup script whenever you open a new terminal. Load the script manually to get started.

~$ source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm

Use rvm get head to get the latest version.

~$ rvm get head

View the available versions of Ruby.

~$ rvm list known

Check Ruby in the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Platforms document to find the latest version of Ruby available on an Elastic Beanstalk platform. Install that version.

~$ rvm install 3.2

Test your Ruby installation.

~$ ruby --version

Installing the AWS SDK for Ruby

If you need to manage AWS resources from within your application, install the AWS SDK for Ruby. For example, with the SDK for Ruby, you can use Amazon DynamoDB (DynamoDB) to store user and session information without creating a relational database.

Install the SDK for Ruby and its dependencies with the gem command.

$ gem install aws-sdk

Visit the AWS SDK for Ruby homepage for more information and installation instructions.

Installing an IDE or text editor

Integrated development environments (IDEs) provide a wide range of features that facilitate application development. If you haven't used an IDE for Ruby development, try Aptana and RubyMine and see which works best for you.

If you just want to begin coding and don't need all of the features of an IDE, consider installing Sublime Text.