From: Jano Svitok <jan.svitok@...>
Date: 2007-11-14T01:51:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Automating gem installs?

On Nov 9, 2007 6:48 PM, Justin Hahn <jhahn@rbmtechnologies.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to setup an automated build system for all of our upstream
> binary dependencies (that we don't get from our OS). Since we track a
> newer ruby than most of our machines ship with, this means building ruby
> and installing gems. For the most part this works fine, except when I
> need to install a gem like mongrel that has several versions.
>
>
> For example, if I run 'gem install -y mongrel' from my Makefile, I get
> an error like this (since stdin isn't attached):
>
>
> Select which gem to install for your platform (x86_64-linux)
>  1. mongrel 1.1 (ruby)
>  2. mongrel 1.1 (mswin32)
>  3. mongrel 1.0.4 (mswin32)
>  4. mongrel 1.0.4 (ruby)
>  5. Skip this gem
>  6. Cancel installation
> > ERROR:  While executing gem ... (NoMethodError)
>     undefined method `strip' for nil:NilClass
>
> Unfortunately, the list entries aren't even stable -- sometimes option
> #1 is the mswin32 and sometimes it's the ruby choice. So I can't even do
> something nasty like "echo 1 | gem install -y mongrel" and be assured of
> getting the right thing.
>
> Is there any way to tell gem, from the commandline, precisely which gem
> I want? The documentation seems sparse, and I haven't had the time to go
> digging through gem's source code yet. (My hope is that this is any easy
> answer...)

One way is to install the gems on one machine and run a gem server on it.
Then install the other machines from that server (--source=http://yourserver)

If you install only one version of a gem, only one will be offered and
you'll exactly
know which one.

This will make the install a bit faster, as you'll be downloading from
the local network.
Setting up a gem server is pretty easy -- e.g.
http://rambleon.org/2007/04/19/creating-your-own-gem-server/

J.