Deploying Rails on AWS EC2

🚀 Deploying Rails on AWS EC2: The No-Mistake Step-by-Step Guide

The Ultimate Beginner-to-Pro Deployment Handbook 💡🔧

Deploying a Ruby on Rails app to AWS EC2 can be confusing — servers, dependencies, secrets, networking, ports… one wrong step and everything crashes. This guide removes all guesswork and gives you a bulletproof, production-grade deployment flow. Let’s do it — mistake-free! 💯✨

🧠 Concepts You MUST Know Before Deploying

🔸 1. AWS EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

It’s your virtual Linux machine in the cloud. Think of it as a laptop running 24x7, where your Rails app lives.

🔸 2. SSH (Secure Shell)

A secure way to connect to your EC2 instance using your terminal.

🔸 3. Nginx

A powerful web server that receives browser requests → forwards to Rails.

🔸 4. Passenger / Puma

The Rails application server.

• Passenger integrates well with Nginx (classic choice).
• Puma is fast and modern (default Rails choice).

🔸 5. RDS (Optional)

Managed database service for PostgreSQL/MySQL.

🔸 6. Deployment Directory Structure

Example:

/var/www/myapp
├── current     # Active version
├── shared      # Logs, uploads, secrets
└── releases    # Old deployments

📦 Step 1: Launch Your EC2 Instance

🔧 Recommended Setup

• AMI: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
• Instance type: t2.micro (free-tier)
• Storage: 20GB

• Security groups:

  • SSH → port 22
  • HTTP → port 80
  • HTTPS → port 443

📝 Generate a key pair

Download myapp.pem — don’t lose it! You’ll use it to SSH into the server.

🔗 Step 2: SSH Into the Server

chmod 400 myapp.pem
ssh -i myapp.pem ubuntu@your-public-ip

If connected, you’re inside your cloud machine 🙌

🛠️ Step 3: Install Dependencies

📌 Update packages

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

📌 Install Git, cURL, Nginx

sudo apt install -y git curl gnupg nginx build-essential

🔥 Step 4: Install Ruby Using rbenv

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
rbenv init

Install Ruby-build:

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
sudo apt-get install -y libssl-dev libreadline-dev zlib1g-dev

Install Ruby:

rbenv install 3.3.0
rbenv global 3.3.0

Install Bundler:

gem install bundler

🗄️ Step 5: Install and Configure PostgreSQL (or MySQL)

Install PostgreSQL

sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib -y

Create user & database:

sudo -u postgres createuser --interactive
sudo -u postgres createdb myapp_production

Set password:

sudo -u postgres psql
ALTER USER username WITH PASSWORD 'your-password';

📁 Step 6: Clone Your Rails App

cd /var/www
sudo mkdir myapp
sudo chown ubuntu:ubuntu myapp
cd myapp
git clone https://github.com/your/repo.git .

Install gems:

bundle install

Set up secrets:

EDITOR="nano" bin/rails credentials:edit

🗃️ Step 7: Precompile Assets & Migrate DB

RAILS_ENV=production bin/rails assets:precompile
RAILS_ENV=production bin/rails db:migrate

🔥 Step 8: Install & Configure Passenger + Nginx (or Puma)

Install Passenger

sudo apt install -y dirmngr gnupg
sudo sh -c 'curl -sS https://oss-binaries.phusionpassenger.com/apt/passenger/$(lsb_release -sc) \
 | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/passenger.list'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y libnginx-mod-http-passenger

Check installation:

passenger-config validate-install

🌐 Step 9: Configure Nginx for Rails

Edit configuration:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp

Paste this:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your-server-ip;

    root /var/www/myapp/public;

    passenger_enabled on;
    passenger_ruby /home/ubuntu/.rbenv/shims/ruby;

    client_max_body_size 20m;
}

Enable site:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx

If you see your app in the browser → 🎉 success!

☁️ Step 10: Setup Firewall (UFW)

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
sudo ufw enable

🎉 Step 11: Deploy Updates Without Errors (The Safe Way!)

Pull updates:

git pull origin main
bundle install
RAILS_ENV=production rails db:migrate
rails assets:precompile
sudo systemctl restart nginx

📊 High-Level Deployment Architecture Diagram

User → Nginx → Passenger/Puma → Rails App → PostgreSQL (local or RDS)

⚡ Tips to Improve Your Deployment

⭐ 1. Use ENV variables instead of credentials

Store secrets with:

• AWS SSM Parameter Store
• dotenv gem
• Rails encrypted credentials

⭐ 2. Move DB to AWS RDS

Better scaling, backups, monitoring.

⭐ 3. Enable HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt

Use Certbot:

sudo certbot --nginx

⭐ 4. Enable Auto-Restart for Rails

With Passenger, it restarts automatically after deployments.

⭐ 5. Create Deployment Script

Automate with Bash or GitHub Actions.

⭐ 6. Use CloudWatch for Monitoring

Track RAM, CPU, traffic.

⭐ 7. Use Load Balancer + Auto Scaling

For big applications.

🏁 Final Words

Deploying a Rails app on AWS EC2 is not hard — it’s just a checklist. Follow the exact steps above and you’ll have a production-grade, scalable, secure infrastructure with zero mistakes. 🚀🔥