Ruby (Rack) application could not be started?

Nope. Sorry. Now it's a slightly different error message:

ERROR: Error installing curb: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension. /usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/bin/ruby extconf.rb

Log for the gem make:

make
gcc -I. -I. -I/usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/lib/ruby/1.8/i686-linux -I. -DRUBY_EXTCONF_H=\"curb_config.h\"  -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -fPIC -g -O2    -g -Wall  -c curb_errors.c
gcc -I. -I. -I/usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/lib/ruby/1.8/i686-linux -I. -DRUBY_EXTCONF_H=\"curb_config.h\"  -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -fPIC -g -O2    -g -Wall  -c curb_easy.c
gcc -I. -I. -I/usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/lib/ruby/1.8/i686-linux -I. -DRUBY_EXTCONF_H=\"curb_config.h\"  -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -fPIC -g -O2    -g -Wall  -c curb.c
curb.c: In function ‘Init_curb_core’:
curb.c:366: error: ‘CURLOPT_SEEKFUNCTION’ undeclared (first use in this function)
curb.c:366: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
curb.c:366: error: for each function it appears in.)
curb.c:367: error: ‘CURLOPT_SEEKDATA’ undeclared (first use in this function)
curb.c:368: error: ‘CURLOPT_SOCKOPTFUNCTION’ undeclared (first use in this function)
curb.c:369: error: ‘CURLOPT_SOCKOPTDATA’ undeclared (first use in this function)
curb.c:370: error: ‘CURLOPT_OPENSOCKETFUNCTION’ undeclared (first use in this function)
curb.c:371: error: ‘CURLOPT_OPENSOCKETDATA’ undeclared (first use in this function)
make: *** [curb.o] Error 1

I know since i tried it myself, using the above commands should get rid of it.

I installed curl using your commands twice now. the gem install for curb still fails in the manner I've described.

Getting somewhere now. Even though I've installed curl via your instructions, "curl --version" yields:

curl 7.15.5 (i686-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.15.5 OpenSSL/0.9.8b zlib/1.2.3 libidn/0.6.5
Protocols: tftp ftp telnet dict ldap http file https ftps 
Features: GSS-Negotiate IDN IPv6 Largefile NTLM SSL libz

So, somehow, the new version isn't running.

Can you try after this command:

export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH

That fixed it. Now my gems are installed.

However... there's a new error message in town regarding curl:

libcurl.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory - /home/jeremyfuksa/webapps/tcn_5by5/gems/gems/curb-0.7.16/lib/curb_core.so

More path problems?

Yes, you would also need to add:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/lib

before starting up your app.

I am sorry for not mentioning it earlier.

We're past the curl problems. It's sqlite3 that's breaking now.

Installing sqlite3 (1.3.4) with native extensions 
Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/bin/ruby extconf.rb 
checking for sqlite3.h... yes
checking for sqlite3_libversion_number() in -lsqlite3... yes
checking for rb_proc_arity()... no
checking for sqlite3_initialize()... no
checking for sqlite3_backup_init()... no
checking for sqlite3_column_database_name()... no
checking for sqlite3_enable_load_extension()... no
checking for sqlite3_load_extension()... no
creating Makefile

make
gcc -I. -I. -I/usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/lib/ruby/1.8/i686-linux -I. -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -fPIC -g -O2    -c statement.c
statement.c: In function ‘bind_param’:
statement.c:260: error: ‘sqlite3_int64’ undeclared (first use in this function)
statement.c:260: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
statement.c:260: error: for each function it appears in.)
make: *** [statement.o] Error 1

I'm picking this up in the morning.

You can solve that using:

mkdir ~/src
 cd ~/src
 wget http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite-autoconf-3070800.tar.gz #sqlite3 needed for gem install
 tar -xvzf sqlite-autoconf-3070800.tar.gz
 cd sqlite-autoconf-3070800
 make
 make install
 cd
 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/lib
 export C_INCLUDE_PATH=$HOME/include

I finally have every gem installed and am getting a totally new error:

/home/jeremyfuksa/webapps/tcn_5by5/releases/20111115155113/config/initializers/session_store.rb:3: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting $end ...sion_store :cookie_store, key: '_tcn_5by5_session'

Research is showing that this is because I developed the app using ruby 1.9.2 and now this error is being thrown on ruby 1.8.7. I tried installing 1.9.2 via RVM on this server last night, and even though the install was successful, I could not get my nginx instance to use that version.

I can't imagine that everyone else's experience with setting up a Rails app on this service is this complicated and maddening.

It isn't :)

You might need to change the GEM_HOME environment variable in ~/webapps/tcn_5by5/gems/bin/start to point to whatever location your Ruby 1.9.2 is using for its gems. Be sure to restart Nginx after making that change.

If that doesn't work, then let us know exactly what command or operation is producing the new error.

On the upside, this has been a tremendous learning experience. :)

I was able to get ruby-1.9.2-p290 installed and running with nginx. However, now I'm back to square one with the sqlite3 gem not installing when I run 'bundle install'.

Installing sqlite3 (1.3.4) with native extensions 
Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/bin/ruby extconf.rb 
checking for sqlite3.h... yes
checking for sqlite3_libversion_number() in -lsqlite3... yes
checking for rb_proc_arity()... no
checking for sqlite3_initialize()... no
checking for sqlite3_backup_init()... no
checking for sqlite3_column_database_name()... no
checking for sqlite3_enable_load_extension()... no
checking for sqlite3_load_extension()... no
creating Makefile

make
gcc -I. -I. -I/usr/local/ruby1.8.7ee/lib/ruby/1.8/i686-linux -I. -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -fPIC -g -O2    -c statement.c
statement.c: In function ‘bind_param’:
statement.c:260: error: ‘sqlite3_int64’ undeclared (first use in this function)
statement.c:260: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
statement.c:260: error: for each function it appears in.)
make: *** [statement.o] Error 1

looks like bundle is still using the old ruby even though 'ruby -v' shows the version I want.

My guess is that your /home/jeremyfuksa/webapps/tcn_5by5/bin symlink is still pointing to the old gem location, and you're running bundle from there. Try running bundle from your Ruby 1.9.2 environment's gem/bin directory instead.

That part is correct. Unfortunately, I got the same installer error, just with the right version of ruby being used.

Please try running the bundle config command shown in the accepted answer here: bundle install won't install sqlite3

(And when you run it, be sure to use the correct bundle command.)

Perfect. Got me past that to another Passenger error that I was able to get past. Now the site loads but yields a 500 error. Looking at the logs to figure out what's up with that.

So, the site is up and running finally, but one last bit of housekeeping...

When I logout and then ssh back in, I can do ruby -v and get 1.8.7 again. I had put what I thought were the right $PATH statements in my .bash_profile, but I guess I didn't. What can I do to make sure that I'm always using ruby 1.9.2-p290 when I log in?

Also, how do I change the symlink of $HOME/webapps/$APPNAME/bin to point to the 1.9.2 /bin? I tried ln -s but it didn't seem to work.

Regarding your PATH, you need to put your custom Ruby version at the beginning of the path, and not at the end, eg:

PATH=$HOME/webapps/app/ruby192/bin:$HOME/bin:$PATH

Regarding the symlink, what's the full command that you ran, and what sort of error did you see?

The PATH editing worked. Here's what I got with ln:

ln -s $HOME/webapps/tcn_5by5/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin $HOME/webapps/tcn_5by5/bin ln: creating symbolic link '/home/jeremyfuksa/webapps/tcn_5by5/bin/bin' to '/home/jeremyfuksa/webapps/tcn_5by5/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin': File exists

It was my understanding that I could overwrite the existing link.