Launch an EC2 instance with Amazon Linux.  The current version when I wrote this was:

Basic 64-bit Amazon Linux AMI 

You'll need to make sure port 3000 is open in the firewall, as well.  Make sure you know what "security group" your instance is running with, then in the EC2 Management Console, click on "security groups", select the "inbound" tab, type "3000" in the "port range" field, click "add rule", then click "apply rule changes".  Now you will be able to see your rails site when you get it running.    The firewall changes can be done before or after you launch your instance and take place almost instantly.

installing rails in EC2 under Amazon Linux

Install system-wide development tools:

sudo yum install -y git gcc make gcc-c++

install RVM
- directions here: http://beginrescueend.com/rvm/install/
- make sure to reload your bash profile or log out/log in in order to make rvm work
  - source ~/.bash_profile

rvm pkg install zlib
rvm pkg install openssl

rvm install 1.9.3 --with-zlib-dir=$rvm_path/usr --with-openssl-dir=$HOME/.rvm/usr

rvm use 1.9.3 --default

gem install rails

sudo yum install -y sqlite-devel

gem install sqlite3

and now you're ready to run rails (for development)

rails new joe

cd joe

edit Gemfile with your favorite editor (may need to sudo yum install <editor>) and add


gem 'execjs'
gem 'therubyracer'

anywhere in the file.

bundle install

rails server

This is for using ssh and git with your certificates.. better description coming later.

In ~/.ssh/config, add:

Host gh
        Hostname github.com
        User git
        IdentityFile ~/.ssh/somekey

Now you can do git clone ssh://gh/username/repo.git.