I am at Bluehost (dedicated server) trying to run a rails 4 app. I asked to have my server re-imaged, specifying that I do not want rails, ruby, or passenger install automatically as I wanted to install the latest versions myself using a version manager (Bluehost by default offers rails 2.3, ruby 1.8, and passenger 3, which won't work with my app).

I installed ruby 1.9.3p327, rails 4.0.0, and passenger 4.0.5. I can verify this by typing, "ruby -v", "rails -v", and "passenger -v" (also "gem -v"). I made sure to install these not as root, so that I don't get a 403 forbidden error when trying to deploy the app.

I installed passenger by typing "gem install passenger", and then installed the nginx passenger module (into "/nginx") with "passenger-install-nginx-module".

I am trying to run my rails app on a subdomain, http://development.thegraduate.hk (I am using the subdomain to show my client progress on the website). In bluehost I created that subdomain, and had it point to "public_html/thegraduate". I then created a symlink from "rails_apps/thegraduate/public" to "public_html/thegraduate" and verified that the symlink exists.

The problem is: when I go to http://development.thegraduate.hk, I get a directory listing. There is nothing resembling a rails app. I have not added a .htaccess file to /rails_apps/thegraduate/public, as that was never specified in the installation of passenger. It was meant to be 'install and go'.

When I type "passenger-memory-status", I get 3 things: - Apache processes (7) - Nginx processes (0) - Passenger processes (0)

So it appears that nginx and passenger are not running, and I can't figure out how to get it to run (I'm not looking to have it run as a standalone server).

Here is my nginx.conf file (/nginx/conf/nginx.conf):

#user  nobody;
worker_processes  1;

#error_log  logs/error.log;
#error_log  logs/error.log  notice;
#error_log  logs/error.log  info;

#pid        logs/nginx.pid;


events {
worker_connections  1024;
}


http {
passenger_root /home/thegrad4/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.5;
passenger_ruby /home/thegrad4/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p327/bin/ruby;

include       mime.types;
default_type  application/octet-stream;

#log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
#                  '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
#                  '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

#access_log  logs/access.log  main;

sendfile        on;
#tcp_nopush     on;

#keepalive_timeout  0;
keepalive_timeout  65;

#gzip  on;

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  development.thegraduate.hk;
    root ~/rails_apps/thegraduate/public;
    passenger_enabled on;
    #charset koi8-r;

    #access_log  logs/host.access.log  main;

    location / {
        root   html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

    #error_page  404              /404.html;

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   html;
    }

    # proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80
    #
    #location ~ \.php$ {
    #    proxy_pass   http://127.0.0.1;
    #}
    # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
    #
    #location ~ \.php$ {
    #    root           html;
    #    fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
    #    fastcgi_index  index.php;
    #    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /scripts$fastcgi_script_name;
    #    include        fastcgi_params;
    #}

    # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
    # concurs with nginx's one
    #
    #location ~ /\.ht {
    #    deny  all;
    #}
}


# another virtual host using mix of IP-, name-, and port-based configuration
#
#server {
#    listen       8000;
#    listen       somename:8080;
#    server_name  somename  alias  another.alias;

#    location / {
#        root   html;
#        index  index.html index.htm;
#    }
#}


# HTTPS server
#
#server {
#    listen       443;
#    server_name  localhost;
#    ssl                  on;
#    ssl_certificate      cert.pem;
#    ssl_certificate_key  cert.key;

#    ssl_session_timeout  5m;

#    ssl_protocols  SSLv2 SSLv3 TLSv1;
#    ssl_ciphers  HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
#    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;

#    location / {
#        root   html;
#        index  index.html index.htm;
#    }
#}
}

I don't get any errors, just the directory listing. I've tried to be as detailed as possible. Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated as I've been stumped for the past 3 days. Scouring the web has not helped as my issue seems to be specific to me.

Thanks so much. If there are any potential details I forgot to specify, just ask.

** ADDITIONAL INFORMATION **

Going to development.thegraduate.hk/public/ will correctly display the index.html page in /rails_apps/thegraduate/public. However, changing root in the routes.rb file to "root => 'home#index'" does nothing.