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ruby-build is a command-line tool that simplifies installation of any Ruby version from source on Unix-like systems.
It is available as a plugin for [rbenv][] as the `rbenv install` command, or as a standalone program as the `ruby-build` command.
### Homebrew package manager
brew install ruby-build
```
Upgrade with:
```sh
### Clone as rbenv plugin using git
```sh
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git "$(rbenv root)"/plugins/ruby-build
```
git -C "$(rbenv root)"/plugins/ruby-build pull
```
### Install manually as a standalone program
First, download a tarball from https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build/releases/latest. Then:
```sh
tar -xzf ruby-build-*.tar.gz
PREFIX=/usr/local ./ruby-build-*/install.sh
$ ruby-build --list # lists available versions of Ruby
$ ruby-build 3.2.2 /opt/rubies/ruby-3.2.2 # installs Ruby 3.2.2
# As an rbenv plugin
$ rbenv install 3.2.2 # installs Ruby 3.2.2 to ~/.rbenv/versions/3.2.2
> ruby-build mostly does not verify that system dependencies are present before downloading and attempting to compile Ruby from source. Please ensure that [all requisite libraries][build-env] such as build tools and development headers are already present on your system.
Basically, what ruby-build does when installing a Ruby version is this:
- Downloads an official tarball of Ruby source code;
- Extracts the archive into a temporary directory on your system;
- Executes `./configure --prefix=/path/to/destination` in the source code;
- Runs `make install` to compile Ruby;
- Verifies that the installed Ruby is functional.
Depending on the context, ruby-build does a little bit more than the above: for example, it will try to link Ruby to the appropriate OpenSSL version, even if that means downloading and compiling OpenSSL itself; it will discover and link to Homebrew-installed instances of some libraries like libyaml and readline, etc.
To install a version of Ruby that is not recognized by ruby-build, you can specify the path to a custom build definition file in place of a Ruby version number.
Check out [default build definitions][definitions] as examples on how to write definition files.
The build process may be configured through the following environment variables:
| Variable | Function |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `TMPDIR` | Where temporary files are stored. |
| `RUBY_BUILD_BUILD_PATH` | Where sources are downloaded and built. (Default: a timestamped subdirectory of `TMPDIR`) |
| `RUBY_BUILD_CACHE_PATH` | Where to cache downloaded package files. (Default: `~/.rbenv/cache` if invoked as rbenv plugin) |
| `RUBY_BUILD_HTTP_CLIENT` | One of `aria2c`, `curl`, or `wget` to use for downloading. (Default: first one found in PATH) |
| `RUBY_BUILD_ARIA2_OPTS` | Additional options to pass to `aria2c` for downloading. |
| `RUBY_BUILD_CURL_OPTS` | Additional options to pass to `curl` for downloading. |
| `RUBY_BUILD_WGET_OPTS` | Additional options to pass to `wget` for downloading. |
| `RUBY_BUILD_MIRROR_URL` | Custom mirror URL root. |
| `RUBY_BUILD_MIRROR_PACKAGE_URL` | Custom complete mirror URL (e.g. http://mirror.example.com/package-1.0.0.tar.gz). |
| `RUBY_BUILD_SKIP_MIRROR` | Bypass the download mirror and fetch all package files from their original URLs. |
| `RUBY_BUILD_ROOT` | Custom build definition directory. (Default: `share/ruby-build`) |
| `RUBY_BUILD_TARBALL_OVERRIDE` | Override the URL to fetch the ruby tarball from, optionally followed by `#checksum`. |
| `RUBY_BUILD_DEFINITIONS` | Additional paths to search for build definitions. (Colon-separated list) |
| `CC` | Path to the C compiler. |
| `RUBY_CFLAGS` | Additional `CFLAGS` options (_e.g.,_ to override `-O3`). |
| `CONFIGURE_OPTS` | Additional `./configure` options. |
| `MAKE` | Custom `make` command (_e.g.,_ `gmake`). |
| `MAKE_OPTS` / `MAKEOPTS` | Additional `make` options. |
| `MAKE_INSTALL_OPTS` | Additional `make install` options. |
| `RUBY_CONFIGURE_OPTS` | Additional `./configure` options (applies only to Ruby source). |
| `RUBY_MAKE_OPTS` | Additional `make` options (applies only to Ruby source). |
| `RUBY_MAKE_INSTALL_OPTS` | Additional `make install` options (applies only to Ruby source). |
| `NO_COLOR` | Disable ANSI colors in output. The default is to use colors for output connected to a terminal. |
| `CLICOLOR_FORCE` | Use ANSI colors in output even when not connected to a terminal. |
Both `rbenv install` and `ruby-build` commands support the `-p/--patch` flag to apply a patch to the Ruby source code before building. Patches are read from standard input:
```sh
# applying a single patch
$ rbenv install --patch 1.9.3-p429 < /path/to/ruby.patch
# applying a patch from HTTP
$ rbenv install --patch 1.9.3-p429 < <(curl -sSL http://git.io/ruby.patch)
# applying multiple patches
$ cat fix1.patch fix2.patch | rbenv install --patch 1.9.3-p429
```
All Ruby definition files bundled with ruby-build include checksums for packages, meaning that all externally downloaded packages are automatically checked for integrity after fetching.
See the next section for more information on how to author checksums.
To speed up downloads, ruby-build fetches package files from a mirror hosted on
Amazon CloudFront. To benefit from this, the packages must specify their checksum:
```sh
# example:
install_package "ruby-2.6.5" "https://ruby-lang.org/ruby-2.6.5.tgz#<SHA2>"
```
ruby-build will first try to fetch this package from `$RUBY_BUILD_MIRROR_URL/<SHA2>`
(note: this is the complete URL), where `<SHA2>` is the checksum for the file. It
will fall back to downloading the package from the original location if:
- the package was not found on the mirror;
- the mirror is down;
- the download is corrupt, i.e. the file's checksum doesn't match;
- no tool is available to calculate the checksum; or
- `RUBY_BUILD_SKIP_MIRROR` is enabled.
You may specify a custom mirror by setting `RUBY_BUILD_MIRROR_URL`.
If a mirror site doesn't conform to the above URL format, you can specify the
complete URL by setting `RUBY_BUILD_MIRROR_PACKAGE_URL`. It behaves the same as
`RUBY_BUILD_MIRROR_URL` except being a complete URL.
The default ruby-build download mirror is sponsored by
[Basecamp](https://basecamp.com/).
Both `ruby-build` and `rbenv install` accept the `-k` or `--keep` flag, which
tells ruby-build to keep the downloaded source after installation. This can be
useful if you need to use `gdb` and `memprof` with Ruby.
Source code will be kept in a parallel directory tree `~/.rbenv/sources` when
using `--keep` with the `rbenv install` command. You should specify the
location of the source code with the `RUBY_BUILD_BUILD_PATH` environment
variable when using `--keep` with `ruby-build`.
Please see the [ruby-build wiki][wiki] for solutions to common problems.
If you can't find an answer on the wiki, open an issue on the [issue tracker][].
Be sure to include the full build log for build failures.
[rbenv]: https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv#readme
[definitions]: https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build/tree/master/share/ruby-build
[wiki]: https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build/wiki
[build-env]: https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build/wiki#suggested-build-environment
[issue tracker]: https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build/issues