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Deploy Rails application in DigitalOcean, Nginx, and HTTPS

Straight to the point, you need to deploy a Rails application and you are using a VPS solution such as DigitalOcean, Linode, or the likes? Good, do you also need to use Nginx instead of rails -s -p 80? Perfect, and… https as well right? Sounds good, let’s get to it.

TL;DR

I have created a simple script to make the whole process easier.

Make sure to update the variables and you can run it from your host machine with cat ./rails-prod-deploy.sh | ssh root@your-server-ip

This script will:

Starting the VPS instance

I don’t think I need to explain too much in this instance. If you are using DigitalOcean (that’s my own link, if you sign up you get $100 as credit, pretty nice), just create a new droplet and select Ubuntu as OS. If your app is small and you don’t expect a lot whole of traffic you can just go with the $5 instance.

Getting into the server

You can use SSH or a password, using SSH is recommended.

Let’s make sure we update the system first. Run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

OPTIONAL — Swap memory

If you choose a small instance (ie $5 droplet) it’s a good idea to set up a swap memory so we don’t run into memory issues. Go ahead and run the following commands:

sudo fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10
sudo sysctl vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

Huge thanks and credits to Brian Boucheron’s DigitalOcean article.

Nginx + HTTPS

Update your domain DNS to point to your instance. We will be setting up Nginx but also, we will get our certificate from LetsEncrypt. To set up your Nginx config, let’s use DigitalOcean tool for Nginx

You can make the changes you need.

Once you are done, go to the bottom and click on Copy Base64 (you will need it later to follow the instructions from Setup).

Install Nginx and Certbot

sudo snap install -- classic certbot
sudo apt install -y nginx

Follow the instructions from Setup. When done, you should have an HTTPS ready to be used.

Setting up the application

Clone/download your project in your VPS.

Install RVM (it lets you install any ruby version quite easily) with:

sudo apt-get install -y software-properties-common
sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:rael-gc/rvm
sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install -y rvm postgresql-client libpq5 libpq-dev
source /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh

Go to your project’s folder and install the dependencies:

cd path/to/project
rvm install
gem install bundler
bundle install

Perfect, now let’s install the frontend dependencies. Let’s install NVM (same as RVM but for nodejs):

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.36.0/install.sh | bash
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"

Optional, if you are using yarn:

npm i -g yarn

Now we can install the frontend dependencies:

cd path/to/project
npm i # or yarn

Important, make sure you have your config/master.key in place, otherwise, the following steps may fail.

Compiling assets

Since we are deploying for production we need to precompile the assets:

cd path/to/project
NODE_ENV=production RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile

Create database and run migrations

Now we can create the database and run the migrations:

cd path/to/project
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:create db:migrate

Almost done!

Ok, we got the assets and the database created, now we need to make a small adjustment in the Nginx configuration. Go ahead and open up yours:

vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/trackear.app.conf

Press “i” so you enter in edit mode for vim and, at the top of the file, add the following:

upstream app {
    server unix:///path/to/project/shared/sockets/puma.sock fail_timeout=0;
}

Make sure to update /path/to/project.

Also, pay close attention to the whole file, you will probably need to update paths (ie, root to reflect the route where your project is).

Inside of server { ... } (the first one, the one containing listen 443 ...) add the following:

try_files $uri/index.html $uri @app;
# index.html fallback
location @app {
    proxy_pass http://app;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
    proxy_redirect off;
}

With that, Nginx should be done. You can save the file and exit from vim typing “:wq” (if it doesn’t work, closing the window, and unplugging the PC is also an option).

Run and test!

Alright, this is the moment to be on your knees and pray that nothing breaks up. Sounds fun right?

Let’s begin by starting rails:

cd path/to/project
mkdir -p tmp/sockets
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec puma -b unix:///path/to/project/shared/sockets/puma.sock

Make sure the path you pass in -b unix:// matches the one you set up in your Nginx configuration!

Rails done, and now… this is pray time, restart the Nginx service and pray for it to work:

sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

If it worked, congratulations. But let’s be honest, I’m sure there is a small error so get back to work. The joy of being a developer/devops/sysadmin.

Hope this small guide helps you!