[[ActiveFedora Wiki|Overview]] | [[Documentation]] | [[Community]]
h1. Setting up a Rails App to use ActiveFedora

h2. Overview

This document explains how to

* Install the active-fedora gems
* Create a rails app
* Set up rspec (optional)
* Freeze the gems into your app (optional)
* Set environment variables so your app can find Fedora and Solr
* Create some methods in your application controller for loading connections to Fedora & Solr

Once you've set up the Rails app, you will be ready to start [[Creating ActiveFedora Models]]

h2. Setup Steps

Create the rails app

<pre>
rails my-app-name
cd my-app-name
</pre>

Install the gems if you haven't already

<pre>
sudo gem install active-fedora
</pre>

Freeze the gems into your app (optional)

<pre>
sudo rake gems:freeze GEM=ruby-fedora VERSION=1.0.4
sudo rake gems:freeze GEM=active-fedora VERSION=1.0.4
</pre>

Create  config/initializers/fedora_repository.rb and put this into it:

<pre>
require "active_fedora"
FEDORA_URL = 'http://fedoraAdmin:fedoraAdmin@127.0.0.1:8080/fedora'
SOLR_URL = 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/solr/'
</pre>

* see sample "fedora_repository.rb":/attachments/download/55 
* if you have set Fedora to require SSL for API-M operations, set FEDORA_URL to FEDORA_URL = 'https://fedoraAdmin:fedoraAdmin@127.0.0.1:8443/fedora'


Edit app/controllers/application.rb addign these methods:

<pre>
  private
  def require_fedora
    Fedora::Repository.register(FEDORA_URL,  session[:user])
    return true
  end
  def require_solr
    ActiveFedora::SolrService.register(SOLR_URL)
  end
</pre>

* see sample "application.rb":/attachments/download/56

Optionally [[set up basic shared authentication]]

Edit config/environment.rb adding these lines:
<pre>
config.gem "ruby-fedora", :version => '>= 1.0.4'
config.gem "active-fedora", :version => '>= 1.0.4'
config.gem "haml"
</pre>

h3. Set up RSpec (optional)

If you plan to use rspec, do the following

Run the rspec script
<pre>
script/generate rspec
</pre>
Set FEDORA_TEST_URL and SOLR_TEST_URL in spec/spec_helper.rb
<pre>
FEDORA_TEST_URL = 'http://fedoraAdmin:fedoraAdmin@127.0.0.1:8080/fedora'
SOLR_TEST_URL = 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/solr/'
</pre>


h2. Notes

_Important:_ If you are not using any activerecord objects at all, you will have to either turn off rails' sql obsession, or set up sqlite3 databases and run db:migrate to give them empty schemas

Make sure to register Fedora::Repository and ActiveFedora::SolrService if/when you need them in tests.

Make sure to call [[require_solr and/or require_fedora in your controllers]] whenever a method needs to connect to them.  This is usually handled by the :require_fedora and :require_fedora controller methods.

h2. What You've Just Done

You now have a Rails app that's ready to use with ActiveFedora.

See [[Creating ActiveFedora Models]] to get started using ActiveFedora in your app.