Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering
CSE 3901: Web Applications (Spring 2025)

Setting up the Development Environment on MacOS

Last updated: Aug 5, 2024

The following guide is based on MacOS Ventura (13.0).

Overview

  1. Install Homebrew
  2. Create SSH keys
  3. Install Ruby and Rails
  4. Install Chrome and VS Code

Step 1: Install Homebrew

Homebrew is a package manager for MacOS.

Install it by copying the following command into a terminal window:

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Agree to install XCode Command Line Tools if the installer asks. Read the installer's output, and follow any other instructions provided, such as adding Homebrew to your PATH.

Step 2: Create SSH keys

Create an SSH private-public key pair to facilitate logging in to remote machines without typing a password. Copy the command below, customizing login@hostname with your own information.

$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "login@hostname"

When prompted, accept the default location (~/.ssh/id_ed25519) and default passphrase (i.e., empty for none).

Step 4: Install Ruby and Rails on the Virtual Machine

  1. Install rbenv as well as ruby-build (a plugin for installing Ruby).

    $ brew install rbenv ruby-build

    After installation, add rbenv to the shell.

    $ echo 'if which rbenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(rbenv init -)"; fi' >> ~/.zshrc
$ source ~/.zshrc

  2. Install Ruby.

    $ rbenv install 3.3.3 # this step takes several minutes
$ rbenv global 3.3.3  # set default ruby version
$ ruby -v # confirm it works

  3. Install Rails.

    $ gem install --no-document rails -v 7.0.8

  4. Confirm Rails installation with a simple smoke test.

    $ mkdir rails_work
$ cd rails_work
$ rails new demo
$ cd demo
$ rails server

    The output of the last command should look something like:

    => Booting Puma
=> Rails 7.0.8.y application starting in development 
=> Run `bin/rails server --help` for more startup options
Puma starting in single mode...
* Puma version: 5.6.8 (ruby 3.3.3-pxx) ("Birdie's Version")
*  Min threads: 5
*  Max threads: 5
*  Environment: development
*          PID: 18440
* Listening on http://127.0.0.1:3000
* Listening on http://[::1]:3000
Use Ctrl-C to stop

    You can kill the server with Ctrl-C (in the terminal window in which it is running):

    ^C- Gracefully stopping, waiting for requests to finish
=== puma shutdown: yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss -0400 ===
- Goodbye!
Exiting

  5. Install Node (not needed for Rails, but we'll be using it too).

     $ wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.1/install.sh | bash
 $ nvm install 20 --lts

Step 5: Install Chrome and VS Code

  1. (Optional) Install Chrome. (This step is optional because Safari can be used instead.)

  2. Install VS Code.

    1. Download and install VS Code for MacOS.

    2. Watch the first few overview videos to learn your way around the IDE.

    3. Install some useful extensions: