gem error

[DavidG]

Hi,

Sorry - I am new to ruby, and am trying to install automateit via gem:

gem install -y automateit

However, I get the following error:

ERROR: While executing gem ... (ArgumentError)
illegal access mode rb:ascii-8bit

Environment:

linux (ubuntu feisty)

gem: v1.3.5
ruby: v1.90

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
David

[Igal Koshevoy]

DavidG wrote:
> Sorry - I am new to ruby, and am trying to install automateit via gem:
>
> gem install -y automateit
>
> However, I get the following error:
>
> ERROR: While executing gem ... (ArgumentError)
> illegal access mode rb:ascii-8bit
>
> Environment:
>
> linux (ubuntu feisty)
>
> gem: v1.3.5
> ruby: v1.90

Thank you for trying AutomateIt and reporting this issue.

I think that the problem is being caused by your Ruby interpreter.

You should not use Ruby 1.9.0: it is not stable and has been abandoned
for 1.5 years. The 1.9.x series remains under development, but makes
significant changes to the Ruby language, which are probably triggering
the bug you encountered.

To run AutomateIt and other Ruby apps that you care about, please use a
current release of Ruby 1.8.6, Ruby 1.8.7 or Ruby Enterprise Edition (REE).

Also, Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" reached its end-of-life almost a year
ago, which means there are no more packages or security updates being
published for it. You really should upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04 'Hardy Heron"
if you need stability, or Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" if you need the
latest software versions.

Ubuntu 8.04 and newer, plus the current releases of Debian, Fedora and
Gentoo include stable, patched and modern Ruby versions that you can use.

Here's a sample shell script that installs Ruby and its dependencies on
Ubuntu 8.04, and checks out some recipes via git. Please read through
what the commands do -- for example, you probably don't want the last bit:
http://github.com/igal/osbp_automateit/blob/master/bootstrap.sh

I hope this helps.

-igal

[DavidG]

Igal,

Thanks! I got it working. (It's a long story about my ancient ubuntu
development machine - but I compiled a Ruby 1.8.6 so I can play. The
idea is to use automateit for 8.04 servers on EC2).

BTW, I watched the video from Open Source Bridge. It was very
informative. I certainly get the feeling automateit is in a different
class from, say, puppet. It is ***far*** simpler, and basically
involves a bunch of modules/classes you wrote to make sys admin/config
mgmt easier, via explicit programming, right? I had been trying to
configure servers from "scratch", using bash scripts and some python.
(Thankfully I don't have 30,000 servers, but...) I will give your
system a spin to see if it is better then what I was doing. My main
issue at this point is my unfamiliarity with Ruby...

Really appreciate your help...

David