How can I install a local gem?

Question

If I download a .gem file to a folder in my computer, can I install it later using gem install?

This post is related to stackoverflow.com/questions/1864618/install-gem-locally — Jaider
– Jaider, Commented Jul 15, 2014 at 20:35

megas · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-06 11:17:43Z

357

Also, you can use gem install --local path_to_gem/filename.gem

This will skip the usual gem repository scan that happens when you leave off --local.

You can find other magic with gem install --help.

edited Apr 6, 2012 at 11:17

megas

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answered Nov 13, 2008 at 5:54

JasonTrue

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2 Comments

Erran Morad Over a year ago

I download a gem such as rubygems in zip format. So there is no .gem file here. How do I install this from local ? Thank you.

JasonTrue Over a year ago

@BoratSagdiyev, a zip file is not a gem. Like most zip files, you need to unzip it before you can do much with it. If it contains a gem, then you can use gem install on the extracted .gem file. I don't remember the internals of the gem format; it's possible it may just be a zip file with a special header, but rubygems doesn't recognize zip files as such.

Ross Attrill · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-12 06:13:04Z

303

Yup, when you do gem install, it will search the current directory first, so if your .gem file is there, it will pick it up. I found it on the gem reference, which you may find handy as well:

gem install will install the named gem. It will attempt a local installation (i.e. a .gem file in the current directory), and if that fails, it will attempt to download and install the most recent version of the gem you want.

edited Feb 12, 2019 at 6:13

Ross Attrill

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answered Oct 20, 2008 at 22:35

Chris Bunch

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5 Comments

Ain Tohvri Over a year ago

Link ends in infinite redirects :(

Charles Wood Over a year ago

Checking in to say that this is working for me in 2019.

Martin Over a year ago

I have a Gemfile but not a .gem file. So what is this .gem file? What should it contain? — Wait – I see. You mean an gem-name.gem file. Remember that on unix it's pretty normal to have file starting with a '.' so it's better to spell it out.

Jed Burke Over a year ago

I can confirm from the future of 2020, the link works for me. In case it doesn't work in the distant future, here's the Archive.org April 19th, 2020 snapshot

ptim Over a year ago

"I have a Gemfile but not a .gem file" - Run gem build to generate a *.gem file from Gemfile (I'm a ruby noob, this worked for me!)

Lesmana · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-06 21:54:50Z

68

you can also use the full filename to your gem file:

gem install /full/path/to/your.gem

this works as well -- it's probably the easiest way

edited Feb 6, 2017 at 21:54

Lesmana

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answered Oct 31, 2011 at 15:50

user979912

Comments

Boris Stitnicky · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-12 03:36:41Z

44

If you create your gems with bundler:

# do this in the proper directory
bundle gem foobar

You can install them with rake after they are written:

# cd into your gem directory
rake install

Chances are, that your downloaded gem will know rake install, too.

answered Jun 12, 2013 at 3:36

Boris Stitnicky

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2 Comments

sixty4bit Over a year ago

this seems like the best modern answer. accepted answer is from 8 years ago

Igor Skochinsky Over a year ago

this is useful for those who create gems but not so much for those who simply want to install a prebuilt one

Karl Amort · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-19 20:38:47Z

18

If you want to work on a locally modified fork of a gem, the best way to do so is

gem 'pry', path: './pry'

in a Gemfile.

... where ./pry would be the clone of your repository. Simply run bundle install once, and any changes in the gem sources you make are immediately reflected. With gem install pry/pry.gem, the sources are still moved into GEM_PATH and you'll always have to run both bundle gem pry and gem update to test.

answered Mar 19, 2017 at 20:38

Karl Amort

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hechen0 · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-05 11:39:13Z

15

if you download the project file from github or other scm host site, use gem build to build the project first, so you can get a whatever.gem file in current directory. Then gem install it!

answered Jan 5, 2015 at 11:39

hechen0

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leobelizquierdo · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-25 23:04:03Z

6

Go to the path in where the gem is and call gem install -l gemname.gem

answered Jan 25, 2016 at 23:04

leobelizquierdo

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Vinayak Mishra · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-30 05:32:06Z

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You can download gems from https://rubygems.org/gems/ or build you local gem via bundle and rack.

eg:

bundle gem yourGemName
rake install

Take care of installing dependencies before installing actual gems.

gem install --local /pathToFolder/xxx-2.6.1.gem

Note: If using fluentd td-agent and ruby on same machine. Please make sure to use td-agent's td-agent-gem command. td-agent has own Ruby.

answered Oct 30, 2019 at 5:32

Vinayak Mishra

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Daniel Antonio Nuñez Carhuayo · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-23 15:09:04Z

Well, it's this my DRY installation:

Look into a computer with already installed gems needed in the cache directory (by default: [Ruby Installation version]/lib/ruby/gems/[Ruby version]/cache)
Copy all "*.gems files" to a computer without gems in own gem cache place (by default the same patron path of first step: [Ruby Installation version]/lib/ruby/gems/[Ruby version]/cache)
In the console be located in the gems cache (cd [Ruby Installation version]/lib/ruby/gems/[Ruby version]/cache) and fire the gem install anygemwithdependencieshere (by example cucumber-2.99.0)

It's DRY because after install any gem, by default rubygems put the gem file in the cache gem directory and not make sense duplicate thats files, it's more easy if you want both computer has the same versions (or bloqued by paranoic security rules :v)

Edit: In some versions of ruby or rubygems, it don't work and fire alerts or error, you can put gems in other place but not get DRY, other alternative is using launch integrated command gem server and add the localhost url in gem sources, more information in: https://guides.rubygems.org/run-your-own-gem-server/

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