While setting up my Rails development environment on my fresh Kubuntu VM, I’ve encountered many errors. This one was occurring when trying to launch a WEBrick server:

/home/dinduks/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems/activesupport-3.1.3/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:240:in `require’: cannot load such file – openssl (LoadError)

This error means that your Ruby isn’t compiled with openssl.

Assuming that you use RVM, these are the steps to follow to fix this issue.

Install the openssl package

rvm pkg install openssl

Remove the Ruby installation you’re using

rvm remove 1.9.3

And finally recompile Ruby with openssl

rvm install 1.9.3 --with-openssl-dir=$HOME/.rvm/usr

Everything should be working now. Don’t forget to:

rvm use 1.9.3 --default

I hope my first Rails related tutorial was helpful, happy coding! :)