Nokogiri install on a Redhat VM fails - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm trying to setup a new Redhat VM that will run my Redhat Ruby on Rails application.
I am trying to bundle install and it's not working. It keeps telling me to install Nokogiri, but I do install it but I still get the error.
Here is how I installed Nokogiri
$ sudo gem install nokogiri -v 1.5.11
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed nokogiri-1.5.11
1 gem installed
Then, in my Rails app I do bundle install and I get this error:
Installing nokogiri (1.5.11)
Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/bin/ruby extconf.rb
checking for libxml/parser.h... *** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more
details. You may need configuration options.
Provided configuration options:
--with-opt-dir
--without-opt-dir
--with-opt-include
--without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
--with-opt-lib
--without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
--with-make-prog
--without-make-prog
--srcdir=.
--curdir
--ruby=/home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/bin/ruby
--with-zlib-dir
--without-zlib-dir
--with-zlib-include
--without-zlib-include=${zlib-dir}/include
--with-zlib-lib
--without-zlib-lib=${zlib-dir}/lib
--with-iconv-dir
--without-iconv-dir
--with-iconv-include
--without-iconv-include=${iconv-dir}/include
--with-iconv-lib
--without-iconv-lib=${iconv-dir}/lib
--with-xml2-dir
--without-xml2-dir
--with-xml2-include
--without-xml2-include=${xml2-dir}/include
--with-xml2-lib
--without-xml2-lib=${xml2-dir}/lib
--with-xslt-dir
--without-xslt-dir
--with-xslt-include
--without-xslt-include=${xslt-dir}/include
--with-xslt-lib
--without-xslt-lib=${xslt-dir}/lib
--with-libxslt-config
--without-libxslt-config
--with-pkg-config
--without-pkg-config
--with-libxml-2.0-config
--without-libxml-2.0-config
--with-libiconv-config
--without-libiconv-config
/home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:381:in `try_do': The compiler failed to generate an executable file. (RuntimeError)
You have to install development tools first.
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:506:in `try_cpp'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:970:in `block in find_header'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:790:in `block in checking_for'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:284:in `block (2 levels) in postpone'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:254:in `open'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:284:in `block in postpone'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:254:in `open'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:280:in `postpone'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:789:in `checking_for'
from /home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/mkmf.rb:969:in `find_header'
from extconf.rb:116:in `<main>'
Gem files will remain installed in /home/gsidevas/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p448/gems/nokogiri-1.5.11 for inspection.
Results logged to /home/gsidevas/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p448/gems/nokogiri-1.5.11/ext/nokogiri/gem_make.out
An error occurred while installing nokogiri (1.5.11), and Bundler cannot
continue.
Make sure that `gem install nokogiri -v '1.5.11'` succeeds before bundling.
Thoughts?

Answer 1

Following the guide here: http://nokogiri.org/tutorials/installing_nokogiri.html worked for my install using Homebrew 0.9 below are what they recommend for Red Hat.
Red Hat / CentOS
The easiest way to get Nokogiri installed on CentOS and RHEL seems to be the EPEL repository which contains a prebuilt nokogiri package. To use it, install the appropriate epel-release package for your OS, then run:
sudo yum install -y rubygem-nokogiri
To install using gem install is somewhat more complicated because of the age of the packages available from the central repositories. If you have rubygems installed, you may be able to install nokogiri via gem install. If you run intro problems, try installing these packages as well.
sudo yum install -y gcc ruby-devel libxml2 libxml2-devel libxslt libxslt-devel
CentOS 5 (and RHEL5) come installed with libxml 2.6.26 which, while not as offensively out-of-date as Mac Leopard, is still pretty damn old (released June 2006) and has known issues.
If you’re affected by any known bugs or are seeing odd behavior, you may want to consider uninstalling the RPMs for libxml2 and libxslt, and building them from source.
sudo yum remove -y libxml2-devel libxslt-devel
download the most recent libxml2 and libxslt from ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/
./configure ; make ; sudo make install
Then install nokogiri specifying the libxml2 and libxslt install directories:
sudo gem install nokogiri -- --with-xml2-lib=/usr/local/lib
--with-xml2-include=/usr/local/include/libxml2
--with-xslt-lib=/usr/local/lib
--with-xslt-include=/usr/local/include
(Note that, by default, libxslt header files are installed into the root include directory, but libxml2 header files are installed into a subdirectory thereof named libxml2.)
Or, you know, whatever directories into which you installed libxml and libxslt. Good luck.

Answer 2

Here is how I installed nokogiri
$ sudo gem install nokogiri -v 1.5.11
...
/home/gsidevas/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p448/bin/ruby extconf.rb
You used sudo to install Nokogiri when you're using a personal RVM sandbox. Don't do that. The RVM directions for installing gems specifically says:
DO NOT use sudo...
to work with RVM gems. When you do sudo you are running commands as root, another user in another shell and hence all of the setup that RVM has done for you is ignored while the command runs under sudo (such things as GEM_HOME, etc...). So to reiterate, as soon as you 'sudo' you are running as the root system user which will clear out your environment as well as any files it creates are not able to be modified by your user and will result in strange things happening. (You will start to think that someone has a voodoo doll of your application...)
Next:
checking for libxml/parser.h... *** extconf.rb failed ***
Looks like you're missing the devel package for libxml.

Answer 3

try accessing the mkmf.log file and see what information is listed in there. I had a similar issue on Mac OS and I remember having to delete a file because it was corrupted.

Answer 4

Struggled for hours with this error, finally what I needed was:
yum install cmake
cheers

Answer 5

On CentOS the missing compiler environment was the cause for my gem problem:
yum install gcc
yum install cmake
yum install ruby-devel