how to install gems without sudo

Question

On all my gem installs I have to do sudo ? So

sudo gem install rails

will work, while only

gem install rails

will not work. How do I remedy it ?

I have rvm installed -

murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ which rvm
/home/murtaza/.rvm/bin/rvm

murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ which gem
/home/murtaza/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/gem

However I am also getting this warning when I do any operations with gem -

murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ gem
/home/murtaza/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/gem:4: warning: Insecure world writable dir /opt in PATH, mode 040777

EDIT

I have reinstalled rvm using curl -L get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --auto (without sudo).

However still when I try installing gem it gives me the following error -

murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ gem install rails
/home/murtaza/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/gem:4: warning: Insecure world writable dir /opt in PATH, mode 040777
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Errno::EACCES)
    Permission denied - /home/murtaza/.gem/specs

EDIT

I did chown on the whole thing but still getting the error -

murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ sudo chown murtaza.murtaza -R ~/.rvm/*


 murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ gem install rails
    /home/murtaza/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/gem:4: warning: Insecure world writable dir /opt in PATH, mode 040777
    ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Errno::EACCES)
        Permission denied - /home/murtaza/.gem/specs

For the warning, let's see if [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2796421/warning-insecure-world-writable-dir-when-i-run-a-ruby-or-gem-command) will help. — Sergio Tulentsev, Jul 25 '12 at 06:11
Your `chown` looks odd to me. Shouldn't it be `murtaza:murtaza`? — Sergio Tulentsev, Jul 25 '12 at 07:03
Done but still the error. However I checked the ~/.gem dir, and it doesnt have a specs file in the first place. What should I do ? — murtaza52, Jul 25 '12 at 07:05
please, dont install gems with sudo, USE RVM !!! or any other ruby version mannager — Rodrigo Zurek, Jul 25 '12 at 06:07
possible duplicate of ['sudo gem install' or 'gem install' and gem locations](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2119064/sudo-gem-install-or-gem-install-and-gem-locations) — Nakilon, Sep 22 '15 at 12:07
chmod not chown. It's telling you that you have a world writable directory. Chown is the change the USER. 'chmod 755 /some/directory' will silence it. — figtrap, Nov 10 '16 at 00:56
The [answer by @leo.tan](https://stackoverflow.com/a/55273128/2632107) is just about perfect for not requiring elevated permissions, though if ya wanted an example where `sudo` could get involved check a related [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/56157908/2632107) for setting up shared Jekyll servers... also that **`Insecure world writable dir /opt in PATH, mode 040777`** error is __bad__ and I'm pretty sure you've got something else messed-up on your system now. — S0AndS0, May 16 '19 at 02:57

Pedro Nascimento · Answer 1 · 2013-03-22T13:13:08.137

32

Use chown on the whole .rvm and .gem directories back to your user. You probably used sudo before and it screwed up permissions.

sudo chown -R username:group ~/.rvm
sudo chown -R username:group ~/.gem

Of course, change username to your username and group to your group

edited Mar 22 '13 at 13:13

answered Jul 25 '12 at 06:53

Pedro Nascimento

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Sorry, `chown` your `~/.gem`. – Pedro Nascimento Jul 25 '12 at 13:34
I resolved a similar issue using this suggestion, and with the -R recursive flag. – andrewheins Mar 14 '13 at 01:47
how do I know what to put for "group" ? – fatfrog Oct 27 '13 at 04:27
2

do an `ls -l` on any directory in your home folder (even the home folder itself) and you'll probably find out. – Pedro Nascimento Oct 28 '13 at 14:14
This is not working for me. I'm using rvm and 2.1.0 as default. I think I installed a gem using sudo and now I can't install gems without using sudo. Very frustrating because I had my system working pretty good until I did that sudo install. Any ideas? – pixel 67 Feb 24 '14 at 23:20
@pixel67, I am having the same problem, did you ever get your situation figured out? If so, any suggestions? – jackerman09 Sep 16 '14 at 20:43
On a worst case scenario, remove rvm and reinstall it. – Pedro Nascimento Sep 16 '14 at 22:25
@jackerman09 I believe I just reloaded rvm, I'm sorry but it's been a while since I had to deal with this. – pixel 67 Sep 17 '14 at 10:18
1

You can also run `sudo rvm fix-permissions username:groupname` – Zyphrax Nov 25 '14 at 05:18

score 19 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '12 at 06:15

19

When you install them without sudo, Ruby doesn't know where they get installed to. I can't remember where it installs them by default, probably somewhere like ~/.gems or something. Anyway, you can tell Ruby that's where they're installed by setting the GEM_HOME environment variable.

$ # assuming your gems are stored in ~/.gems
$ GEM_HOME="$HOME/.gems" ruby my_program.rb

If that works, then you might put it in your ~/.bashrc (there are a number of possible files this could go in, depending on your system)

answered Jul 25 '12 at 06:15

Joshua Cheek

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Going to leave this answer because it might be helpful for someone else, but since you edited it to say you're using rvm, it doesn't make sense any more (rvm will manage this variable for you). – Joshua Cheek Jul 25 '12 at 06:17
3

`GEM_HOME` is also the way if you don't want to use `rvm` when you use system installed Ruby in ephemeral machines e.g. in Docker container. – gertas Oct 18 '14 at 22:20

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 27 '17 at 10:10

11

For Mac users, this works for me...

Add GEM_HOME to your .bash_profile

For example, nano ~/.bash_profile and add export GEM_HOME=/Users/Michael/.gem where the path is to your own Home folder

Add the gem executables to your system path

Also in .bash_profile, add export PATH="$GEM_HOME/bin:$PATH"

Source: http://michaelehead.com/2016/02/06/installing-gems-without-sudo.html

answered Jul 27 '17 at 10:10

eMarine

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Works in combination with `gem install package --install-dir $GEM_HOME` as mentioned by @Hola Soy Edu Feliz Navidad – conceptdeluxe Feb 07 '19 at 16:08
And when getting "can't find gem ... - Gem::GemNotFoundException" set the GEM_PATH in .bash_profile as well: `export GEM_PATH="$GEM_HOME:$GEM_PATH"` – conceptdeluxe Feb 07 '19 at 16:29
Works for me (ubuntu) – rs028 Dec 05 '19 at 19:24

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 25 '12 at 06:07

6

You should install Ruby Version Manager. It stores installed rubies and gems in your home dir, so now you don't have to use sudo to install gems. It has a lot more features besides this. :)

answered Jul 25 '12 at 06:07

Sergio Tulentsev

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Then probably you have installed system-wide RVM. You should reinstall it as a user install. – Sergio Tulentsev Jul 25 '12 at 06:08
See my edit, the rvm path shows under my home folder. Is it still system wide ? – murtaza52 Jul 25 '12 at 06:11
1

There are 3 installation modes at https://rvm.io/rvm/install/ Which one did you take? – Sergio Tulentsev Jul 25 '12 at 06:13
That's the problem, you should not have used `sudo` there :) – Sergio Tulentsev Jul 25 '12 at 06:22
@murtaza52: I'd remove RVM and reinstall properly. – Sergio Tulentsev Jul 25 '12 at 06:28
Did you remove RVM before installation? – Sergio Tulentsev Jul 25 '12 at 06:46
I mean I deleted the dir at ~/.rvm . I hope that was enough ? – murtaza52 Jul 25 '12 at 06:47
@murtaza52: Yeah, that should be enough. But maybe you have something left in your env files. Check [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3950260/howto-uninstall-rvm). What are permissions for `~/.rvm` and `~/.rvm/.gem/specs`? – Sergio Tulentsev Jul 25 '12 at 06:49
murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ ls -al ~/ | grep rvm drwxrwxr-x 24 murtaza murtaza 4096 2012-07-25 12:03 .rvm murtaza@murtaza-dev:~$ ls -al ~/.rvm/gem/ | grep specs ls: cannot access /home/murtaza/.rvm/gem/: No such file or directory – murtaza52 Jul 25 '12 at 06:53
let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/14384/discussion-between-murtaza52-and-sergio-tulentsev) – murtaza52 Jul 25 '12 at 06:54
It was actually `~/.gem/specs`. I mistyped :) – Sergio Tulentsev Jul 25 '12 at 06:55
The gem dir doesnt have a specs file, it only has a ruby dir. – murtaza52 Jul 25 '12 at 07:01

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 09 '18 at 16:28

2

I resolved my issue in the following way: (I have ubuntu 17.10)

Open terminal and type:

echo "gem: --user-install" >> ~/.gemrc

Then add ruby's bin path in .bashrc file

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.gem/ruby/x.x.x/bin"

answered Sep 09 '18 at 16:28

kuntam robo

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score 2 · Answer 6 · edited May 16 '19 at 06:33

2

MacOS

brew install ruby

edit ~/.zshrc for zsh (for Bash could be something like ~/.bash_aliases)

# By default, binaries installed by gem will be placed into:
# /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bin
export GEM_HOME="/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/"
export PATH="$GEM_HOME/bin:$PATH"

edited May 16 '19 at 06:33

S0AndS0

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answered Mar 21 '19 at 02:58

leo.tan

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score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

try gem install package --install-dir $HOME/.gem.

Don't forget setting the path as it was mentioned before export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.gem/bin".

Something you have to consider is changing the PATH order like export PATH="$HOME/.gem/bin:$PATH". It might happen for example if you are trying to install rails into your local directory on a OS X system but there is an executable alredy built in. In this case if you don't change the path order you will also receive the following output:

Rails is not currently installed on this system. To get the latest version, simply type:

$ sudo gem install rails

You can then rerun your "rails" command.

And setting the variable GEM_HOME like export GEM_HOME="$HOME/.gems"

how to install gems without sudo

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