How do I resolve a permission error installing a custom built gem?

Question

I'm attempting to build my first ruby gem and all seemed to go well until I attempted to install the gem. I'm using RVM so no need for 'sudo gem install' here.

First I attempted to do the following:

jim:~/Desktop/spectest \ [git:master]  
→ rake manifest
(in /Users/jim/Desktop/spectest)
Cleaning
- pkg
rm -rf pkg
Building Manifest
  Manifest
  README
  Rakefile
  bin/buildcss
  ...

jim:~/Desktop/spectest \ [git:master]  
→ rake install
(in /Users/jim/Desktop/spectest)
Cleaning
Gemspec generated
mkdir -p pkg
mkdir -p pkg/css-reader-0.1.0
rm -f pkg/css-reader-0.1.0/Manifest
...
cd pkg
tar zcvf css-reader-0.1.0.tar.gz css-reader-0.1.0
a css-reader-0.1.0
a css-reader-0.1.0/bin
...
cd -
WARNING:  description and summary are identical
  Successfully built RubyGem
  Name: css-reader
  Version: 0.1.0
  File: css-reader-0.1.0.gem
mv css-reader-0.1.0.gem pkg/css-reader-0.1.0.gem
Private key not found; gem will not be signed.
Targeting "ruby" platform.
Password:
Sorry, try again.
Password:
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::InstallError)
    cannot uninstall, check `gem list -d css-reader`
Successfully installed css-reader-0.1.0
1 gem installed
Installing ri documentation for css-reader-0.1.0...
Updating class cache with 3288 classes...
Installing RDoc documentation for css-reader-0.1.0...

Ok - so I wasn't certain why I got the Gem::InstallError here. Is there a log ruby gems keeps that I can find more details regarding the error? Either way I attempted to try installing the .gem package directly:

gem install pkg/css-reader-0.1.0.gem
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Errno::EACCES)
    Permission denied - /Users/jim/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-preview1/gems/css-reader-0.1.0/Manifest

And I get a bit more feedback. This time it looks like a permissions error with the Manifest file. So I attempted to chmod 777 the Manifest file and repeat the process all over again but I keep getting the error. Seems like a novice mistake somewhere on my behalf. Any advice is appreciated!

Answer 1

It is possible at some stage that you had something run with sudo which messed up your permisisons. Have you tried chown -R jim ~/.rvm