Bluehost : Installing TRACKS

Bluehost is among our best web hosts. Sign up with bluehost here

This is a bluehost question posted by mbeazley on 04 July 2008

I’ve successfully installed TRACKS, the open-source GTD app for Ruby on Rails. I thought I’d share a how-to since it took a while to get this figured out.

This installation guide assumes that you already have Ruby on Rails installed.

1. Download the latest version of TRACKS. Located here at the time of this post.

2. Upload it and unzip it to a sub-directory of your choice under: /public_html. For the purposes of this guide let’s simply say ‘/public_html/tracks’.

3. Using the MySQL Database Wizard in your control panel create a new MySQL database and user. Doesn’t matter what you call it. Just note the DB name, the DB username & the password. Could use the following:

DATABASE NAME: tracks
DATABASE USER: tracker
PASSWORD: 1trPSSWD!
PRIVILEGES: grant all

4. Open /tracks/config/database.yml and comment out the SQLite3 lines by putting a ‘#’ at the start of each of the lines you want to comment out. Configure the production and development sections for MySQL. With the example above this should look like:

# MySQL settings
development:
adapter: mysql
database: solideos_tracks
host: localhost
username: solideos_tracker
password: 1trPSSWD!

production:
adapter: mysql
database: solideos_tracks
host: localhost
username: solideos_tracker
password: 1trPSSWD!

5. Open /tracks/config/environment.rb and edit the line SALT = ‘change-me’ to something of your choosing. Could be absolutely anything at all. Like ‘gadzooks’.

6. From a command line do the following:

A. – cd public_html/tracks
B. – run ‘rake db:migrate’, which will create the necessary tables in your database, including some required contents.
C. – run ‘ruby script/server webrick -e production &’

7. Access your TRACKS installation at ‘http://yourdomain.com:3000/signup’

8. Create an admin

9. Create a new user

10. Through your Bluehost control panel got to Software/Services and click on the Ruby on Rails button. Under ‘Available Ruby on Rails’ applications find your TRACKS installation. Cursor over the URL. Note this URL. That URL with the port information (the number after the colon) will be the way you access TRACKS in the future.

11. See the TRACKS website for additional information.

12. Get Things Done!

You can read more about bluehost in detail or sign up now with bluehost web hosting