Setting up an Apache server to work with rails applications on an Amazon EC2 server is quite simple. In this blog post i assume, that rails and all dependecies are already installed on your machine. If that is not the case, please see How to set up rails on ubuntu EC2.

Image credits: https://www.phusionpassenger.com/

1. Install Apache

   sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-prefork-dev
   

2. Install Passenger gem.

   sudo gem install passenger
   

3. If not already installed, install curl

   sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev
   

4. Install Passenger module to Apache (could take a while)

   sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger
   

   Once it´s installed, edit your apache configuration (sudo vi /etc/apache2/httpd.conf) and paste in the configuration that you got from the passenger installation:

   LoadModule passenger_module /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.19/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
   PassengerRoot /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.19
   PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8
   

5. Create a new vhost for your application sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available. Paste in the following config and adjust the DocumentRoot and ServerName for your needs:

   ServerName testapp # !!! Be sure to point DocumentRoot to 'public'! DocumentRoot /home/ubuntu/www/testapp/public # This relaxes Apache security settings. AllowOverride all # MultiViews must be turned off. Options -MultiViews

6. Disable default app, enable your app

   sudo a2dissite default
   sudo a2enssite testapp
   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
   

7. Restart Apache

   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

8. Make sure, port 80 ist activated in your AWS console under 'NETWORK & SECURITY > Security Groups'.

9. Browse to your page http://ec2-x-x-x-x.compute-1.amazonaws.com/. There your should finally see your rails application!

TIP: In case you´ve got some problems check the log/production.log in your rails app. Also be sure, that rake assets:precompile has been executed before the apache is started.