How to copy Ruby gem from one server to another

Question

Is there a way for a particular ruby gem (mysql gem) to be copied from one server to another (both are similar servers)?

In my case, the other server is a production server and gem install mysql is failing to compile there as rubymysqllib is missing and can't install build dependencies there.

Basically my question is: how can I copy a gem from one server to another server?

Answer 1

I couldn't figure out if it is a good practice but I did this way sometimes and worked.

To copy all gems I just copied and past the folder C:\\Ruby187\\lib\\ruby\\gems\\ (adapt this in accordance with your case) from one machine to another.

To copy a single gem I went inside the gems folder and copied the files with same name (of the gem) inside of the respective folders.

C:\Ruby187\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\cache
C:\Ruby187\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\doc*
C:\Ruby187\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\gems*
C:\Ruby187\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\specifications
#*doc and gems are optional

Another way I found, but I never did is like this .

CAUTION

When you copy the gems like this you are not verifying the dependencies and it may cause bad behavior of your application.