[ruby-on-rails] How to start rails server?

I am developing rails 2.3.2 application.

When I type the command "rails script/server"

I got the following output instead of server starting why?

rails script/server
Usage:
  rails new APP_PATH [options]

Options:
  -J, [--skip-javascript]        # Skip JavaScript files
      [--dev]                    # Setup the application with Gemfile pointing to your Rails checkout
      [--edge]                   # Setup the application with Gemfile pointing to Rails repository
  -G, [--skip-git]               # Skip Git ignores and keeps
  -m, [--template=TEMPLATE]      # Path to an application template (can be a filesystem path or URL)
  -b, [--builder=BUILDER]        # Path to a application builder (can be a filesystem path or URL)
      [--old-style-hash]         # Force using old style hash (:foo => 'bar') on Ruby >= 1.9
      [--skip-gemfile]           # Don't create a Gemfile
  -d, [--database=DATABASE]      # Preconfigure for selected database (options: mysql/oracle/postgresql/sqlite3/frontbase/ibm_db/jdbcmysql/jdbcsqlite3/jdbcpostgresql/jdbc)
                                 # Default: sqlite3
  -O, [--skip-active-record]     # Skip Active Record files
      [--skip-bundle]            # Don't run bundle install
  -T, [--skip-test-unit]         # Skip Test::Unit files
  -S, [--skip-sprockets]         # Skip Sprockets files
  -r, [--ruby=PATH]              # Path to the Ruby binary of your choice
                                 # Default: /home/xichen/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p352/bin/ruby
  -j, [--javascript=JAVASCRIPT]  # Preconfigure for selected JavaScript library
                                 # Default: jquery

Runtime options:
  -q, [--quiet]    # Supress status output
  -s, [--skip]     # Skip files that already exist
  -f, [--force]    # Overwrite files that already exist
  -p, [--pretend]  # Run but do not make any changes

Rails options:
  -h, [--help]     # Show this help message and quit
  -v, [--version]  # Show Rails version number and quit

Description:
    The 'rails new' command creates a new Rails application with a default
    directory structure and configuration at the path you specify.

Example:
    rails new ~/Code/Ruby/weblog

    This generates a skeletal Rails installation in ~/Code/Ruby/weblog.
    See the README in the newly created application to get going.

When I type linux command "ls" I got the following directories and files showing:

app  Capfile  config  criptq  db  doc  features  Gemfile  Gemfile.lock  generate  lib  log  nbproject  public  Rakefile  README  script  spec  test  tmp  vendor

my Gemfile is:

source "http://rubygems.org"

gem "rails", "2.3.2"
gem "mysql", "2.8.1"
gem "fastercsv"
gem "will_paginate", "2.3.16"
gem "chronic", "0.6.4"
gem "whenever", "0.4.1"
gem "searchlogic", "2.4.28"

group :development do
  gem "mongrel", "1.1.5"
end

group :test do
  gem "rspec", "1.3.2"
  gem "rspec-rails", "1.3.4"
  gem "factory_girl", "1.3.3"
end

For rails 3.2.3 and latest version of rails you can start server by:
First install all gem with command: bundle install or bundle.
Then Configure your database to the database.yml.
Create new database: rake db:create
Then start rails server.
rails server orrails s

For newest Rails versions

If you have trouble with rails s, sometimes terminal fails.

And you should try to use:

./bin/rails

To access command.

Rails version < 2
From project root run:

./script/server

If you are in rails2 version then to start the server you have do,

script/server or

./script/server

But if you are in rails3 or above version then to start the server you have do,

rails server or

rails s

You have to cd to your master directory and then rails s command will work without problems.

But do not forget bundle-install command when you didn't do it before.

in rails 2.3.X,just type following command to start rails server on linux

script/server

and for more help read "README" file which is already created in rails project folder

I believe this is what happens if "rails new [project]" has not actually executed correctly. If you are doing this on windows and "rails server" just returns the help screen, you may need to restart your command prompt window and likely repeat your setup instructions. This is more likely true if this is your first time setting up the environment.

For rails 2.3.2 you can start server by:

ruby script/server

run with nohup to run process in the background permanently if ssh shell is closed/logged out

nohup ./script/server start > afile.out 2> afile.err < /dev/null &

Goto root directory of your rails project

• In rails 2.x run > ruby script/server
• In rails 3.x use > rails s

I also faced the same issue, but my fault was that I was running "rails s" outside of my application directory. After opening the cmd, just go inside your application and run the commands from their, it worked for me.

In rails 2.3.x application you can start your server by following command:

ruby script/server

In rails 3.x, you need to go for:

rails s

For rails 4.1.4 you can start server:

$ bin/rails server

Make sure you're in the right directory when you start the server

sites>yoursite> rails s

For the latest version of Rails (Rails 5.1.4 released September 7, 2017), you need to start Rails server like below:

hello_world_rails_project$ ./bin/rails server

=> Booting Puma
=> Rails 5.1.4 application starting in development 
=> Run `rails server -h` for more startup options
Puma starting in single mode...
* Version 3.10.0 (ruby 2.4.2-p198), codename: Russell's Teapot
* Min threads: 5, max threads: 5
* Environment: development
* Listening on tcp://0.0.0.0:3000

More help information:

hello_world_rails_project$ ./bin/rails --help

The most common rails commands are:
generate     Generate new code (short-cut alias: "g")
console      Start the Rails console (short-cut alias: "c")
server       Start the Rails server (short-cut alias: "s")
test         Run tests except system tests (short-cut alias: "t")
test:system  Run system tests
dbconsole    Start a console for the database specified in 
config/database.yml
             (short-cut alias: "db")

new          Create a new Rails application. "rails new my_app" creates a
             new application called MyApp in "./my_app"

On rails 3, the simpliest way is rails s. In rails 2, you can use ./script/server start.

You can also use another servers, like thin or unicorn, that also provide more performance.

I use unicorn, you can easily start it with unicorn_rails.

BTW, if you use another things, like a worker (sidekiq, resque, etc), I strongly recommend you to use foreman, so you can start all your jobs in one terminal windows with one command and get a unified log.