Deploying Ruby on Rails on DomainIndia Hosting (cPanel Passenger, DirectAdmin, VPS)

Choosing a plan

Rails needs persistent Ruby processes. On shared hosting our Passenger integration handles this. For heavier sites (>1,000 concurrent users, Sidekiq workers, ActionCable WebSockets), go with a VPS.

Option A — Rails on shared cPanel with Passenger

cPanel ships with Passenger built in. The "Setup Ruby App" tool gives you a point-and-click setup.

1. Log in to cPanel → search "Setup Ruby App" (under "Software")
2. Click "Create Application"
   • Ruby version: 3.2.x (recommended for Rails 7.x+)
   • Application mode: Production
   • Application root: rails_app (the folder under your home directory)
   • Application URL: your domain or subdomain
3. Click Create — cPanel builds a .htaccess + Passenger config
4. In Terminal (cPanel → Terminal):

   source /home/$USER/rubyvenv/rails_app/3.2/bin/activate
   cd ~/rails_app

5. Clone your Rails app:

   git clone https://github.com/yourcompany/your-app.git .

6. Install gems (might take 5–10 min):

   bundle config set --local deployment 'true'
   bundle config set --local without 'development test'
   bundle install

7. Set environment variables in cPanel Setup Ruby App → "Environment variables":
   • RAILS_ENV=production
   • RAILS_MASTER_KEY=<from config/master.key>
   • DATABASE_URL=mysql2://user:pass@localhost/db_name
8. Run database migrations from Terminal:

   bundle exec rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

9. Precompile assets:

   bundle exec rake assets:precompile RAILS_ENV=production

10. Click "Restart" in Setup Ruby App to reload Passenger

Option B — Rails on DirectAdmin with Passenger

DirectAdmin also supports Ruby via Passenger. Pre-check: ask our support to confirm Passenger is enabled on your server.

1. Create a subdomain or domain in DirectAdmin
2. Upload/clone your Rails app to ~/domains/yourcompany.com/public_html/ — or a sibling folder like ~/rails_app with public_html symlinked
3. Create .htaccess with:

   PassengerAppRoot /home/$USER/rails_app
   PassengerRuby /home/$USER/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-3.2.0/ruby
   PassengerPython /usr/bin/python3

4. SSH in, install rvm/rbenv:

   curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
   source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm
   rvm install 3.2.0

5. cd ~/rails_app && bundle install
6. Set ENV vars in ~/rails_app/.env (if using the dotenv gem)
7. Migrate + precompile as in Step 8–9 above
8. Touch ~/rails_app/tmp/restart.txt to reload Passenger

Option C — Rails on VPS (recommended for production)

With a VPS you get full control — any Ruby version, any database, Sidekiq workers, WebSockets, etc.

Typical stack: Ruby 3.3 + Rails 8 + PostgreSQL + Redis + Puma + nginx + Let's Encrypt SSL.

1. Provision AlmaLinux 9 or Ubuntu 22.04 VPS from DomainIndia
2. Install system deps:

   sudo dnf install -y git postgresql postgresql-server redis nginx certbot
   # or on Ubuntu:
   sudo apt install -y git postgresql postgresql-contrib redis nginx certbot

3. Install rbenv + Ruby:

   git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
   git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
   ~/.rbenv/bin/rbenv install 3.3.0
   ~/.rbenv/bin/rbenv global 3.3.0

4. Clone app, install gems, migrate, precompile (same as Option A step 5–9)
5. Create a systemd service for Puma at /etc/systemd/system/rails-puma.service:

   [Unit]
   Description=Puma Rails server
   After=network.target
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   User=deploy
   WorkingDirectory=/home/deploy/rails_app
   ExecStart=/home/deploy/.rbenv/shims/bundle exec puma -C config/puma.rb
   Restart=on-failure
   Environment=RAILS_ENV=production
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

6. Create nginx reverse proxy at /etc/nginx/conf.d/rails.conf:

   upstream puma { server 127.0.0.1:3000; }
   server {
     listen 80;
     server_name yourcompany.com;
     root /home/deploy/rails_app/public;
     try_files $uri @puma;
     location @puma {
       proxy_pass http://puma;
       proxy_set_header Host $host;
       proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
       proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
     }
   }

7. Get SSL: sudo certbot --nginx -d yourcompany.com
8. Start services:

   sudo systemctl enable --now rails-puma nginx

9. For background jobs, set up a second systemd service for Sidekiq (see our "Background Jobs & Queues" article)

Database setup

On shared hosting, create MySQL DB via cPanel → MySQL Databases. Rails config/database.yml:

production:
  adapter: mysql2
  host: localhost
  database: cpanel_user_rails_prod
  username: cpanel_user_railsusr
  password: <%= ENV['DB_PASSWORD'] %>
  pool: 5

On VPS with PostgreSQL:

sudo -u postgres createdb rails_prod
sudo -u postgres createuser deploy
sudo -u postgres psql -c "ALTER USER deploy WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'secret';"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE rails_prod TO deploy;"

config/database.yml:

production:
  adapter: postgresql
  database: rails_prod
  host: localhost
  username: deploy
  password: <%= ENV['DB_PASSWORD'] %>
  pool: 5

Asset pipeline — propshaft + importmaps (Rails 7+)

Rails 7+ ships with propshaft (simpler than sprockets) and importmaps (no Node required). On shared hosting this is gold — no webpack, no esbuild, no Node.js setup needed.

bundle exec rake assets:precompile RAILS_ENV=production

outputs to public/assets/ with fingerprinted filenames. Passenger + nginx serve these directly.

For apps that need Node (React via esbuild, Tailwind JIT), you need the Node.js build to run somewhere — either locally before git push (commit public/assets/ to repo) or on a VPS with Node installed.

Common pitfalls

FAQ