Rails: Your user account isn't allowed to install to the system RubyGems

Question

I am running the command

bundle install 

in a project folder. In some project folders it will produce an error and in other projects folders it will not produce an error. The error is:

Your user account isn't allowed to install to the system RubyGems

I know this can be fixed by following the recommended advice:

bundle install --path vendor/bundle 

My question is why is the behavior inconsistent?

Answer 1

In my case, I solved doing just what the error message suggests:

 Your user account isn't allowed to install to the system RubyGems.   You can cancel this installation and run:        bundle install --path vendor/bundle    to install the gems into ./vendor/bundle/ 

So, instead of:

bundle install 

I ran:

bundle install --path vendor/bundle 

That was the solution for this guy.

The downside of that solution is that it creates a vendor folder inside the current folder, which can be added to .gitignore if it is to distribute the application through Git.

Answer 2

Usually if you're using RVM, rbenv or chruby to install Ruby, all the gems will be installed in your home folder under ~/.rbenv/ruby-version/...

If you're using your system Ruby though (the one that is installed by default) the gems are installed alongside it in a location that you don't have access to without sudo.

My guess would be that your version manager defaults to the system Ruby but some of your projects have a .ruby-version file in them that tells it to use a different version of Ruby which you have access to.