Setting up Virtual Development Environments for Ruby

In this article, I’ll be going through the creation of virtual Ruby development environments. Using this sort of approach when developing applications allows you to start from a clean state at any time and also have vastly different environments setup for various projects on the same server.

I must say that the brilliant RVM is about as good as it gets when it comes to virtual development environments. RVM can install Ruby for you and contains a very complete virtual environment experience with bash completion and even automatic switching of environments based on the project directory you are in.

RVM Installation & Usage

You may install RVM, the latest Ruby and rubygems as follows:

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curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby

This may be installed an root (to /usr/local/rvm) or as a user (to ~/.rvm)

Now enable bash completion as follows:

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echo "[[ -r $rvm_path/scripts/completion ]] && source $rvm_path/scripts/completion" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

You may uninstall RVM at any time using the command:

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rvm implode

View the Ruby version and any other installed versions as follows:

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rvm list

To install an older Ruby version, simply run install:

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rvm install 1.8.7

You may now use the version:

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rvm use 1.8.7

You may check what version you are on at any time by simply using:

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rvm use

To upgrade RVM to the latest version at any time, simply use:

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rvm get stable

RVM Environments

Environments are created against specific Ruby versions. So for example, one could have two environments called “project1” as long as they are created against a different version of Ruby.

To create a virtual environment and install some gems (Ruby modules) in it, switch to the Ruby version you are interested in and create a gemset:

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rvm use 1.9.3
rvm gemset create project1

You may switch to the new gemset using any of the following commands (take your pick):

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rvm gemset use project1
rvm @project1
rvm 1.9.3@project1

And naturally, you may install gems in that gemset as follows:

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gem install redcarpet

To list all created gemsets (environments), use:

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rvm gemset list

To force a particular environment for a project, you may create a .rvmrc file in the project folder with the appropriate commands needed to run the project:

e.g.

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rvm use 1.9.3
rvm gemset use project1

For further information about RVM, be sure to check out the official site. This is a must-have for any Ruby developer.