Installation

You can install Passenger through APT:

# Install our PGP key and add HTTPS support for APT
sudo apt-get install -y dirmngr gnupg apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 561F9B9CAC40B2F7


curl https://oss-binaries.phusionpassenger.com/auto-software-signing-gpg-key.txt | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/phusion.gpg >/dev/null
</span

curl https://oss-binaries.phusionpassenger.com/auto-software-signing-gpg-key-2025.txt | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/phusion.gpg >/dev/null

# Add our APT repository
sudo sh -c 'echo deb https://oss-binaries.phusionpassenger.com/apt/passenger  main > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/passenger.list'
sudo apt-get update

# Install Passenger
sudo apt-get install -y passenger</code></pre>

    
After installation, please validate the install by running passenger-config validate-install. For example:
$ passenger-config validate-install
 * Checking whether this Phusion Passenger install is in PATH... ✓
 * Checking whether there are no other Phusion Passenger installations... ✓

  </div>

  

    Is your Debian or Ubuntu version not listed? Then sorry, we do not provide packages for this version at the moment. Please follow the generic installation instructions through tarball.
  
</div>




  

    
      Enterprise Linux 9: Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky, AlmaEnterprise Linux 8: Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky, Alma
      Other
    
    
  

  

    

      
Notes about RPMs on Enterprise Linux (Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky, Alma)
      
If you are using cPanel/WHM, note that it uses EasyApache whereas Passenger RPMs are designed for the official distro Apache. In this setup the gem installation method is likely a better fit, and you should ensure you have the correct apache tools installed: dnf remove httpd-tools && dnf install ea-apache24-devel. You will also likely need to disable SELinux when using the Passenger gem.
      
Notes about SELinux on Enterprise Linux (Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky, Alma) ≥ 7
      
If you experience dependency errors related to selinux-policy while installing Passenger first try dnf clean all && dnf update, and if that doesn't resolve the issue, try enabling the CR repo: sudo dnf update && sudo dnf config-manager --enable cr.
    

    
You can install Passenger through DNF. But first you need to enable EPEL. The instructions differ depending on whether you are on Red Hat or another Enterprise Linux. The second step is only necessary on Red Hat.

    
Enabling EPEL
    

      

        

          
Step 1:
install EPEL package

          

            
$ sudo dnf install -y dnf-utils
$ sudo dnf install -y https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-$(< /etc/redhat-release tr -dc '0-9.'|cut -d \. -f1).noarch.rpm
$ sudo dnf config-manager --enable epel
$ sudo dnf clean all && sudo dnf update -y
          
        

        

          

            step 2 (rhel only):

            enable the 'optional' repository
          
          

            enable the optional repository (rhel-89-server-optional-rpms). this can be done by enabling the rhel optional subchannel for rhn-classic. for certificate-based subscriptions see red hat subscription management guide.
          
        
      
    

    
Repair Potential System Issues

    
# Ensure curl and nss/openssl are sufficiently up-to-date to talk to the repo
sudo dnf update -y

date
# if the output of date is wrong, please follow these instructions to install ntp
sudo dnf -y install chrony
sudo systemctl enable chronyd
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=ntp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
sudo systemctl restart chronyd


    
Install Passenger itself

    
# Install other prerequisites
sudo dnf install -y pygpgme curl

# Add our  RPM repository
sudo curl --fail -sSLo /etc/yum.repos.d/passenger.repo https://oss-binaries.phusionpassenger.com/yum/definitions/el-passenger.repo

# Install Passenger
sudo dnf install -y --enablerepo=epel passenger

    
After installation, please validate the install by running passenger-config validate-install. For example:
$ passenger-config validate-install
 * Checking whether this Phusion Passenger install is in PATH... ✓
 * Checking whether there are no other Phusion Passenger installations... ✓

  

  

    Is your Enterprise Linux (Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky, Alma) version not listed? Then sorry, we do not provide packages for this version at the moment. Please follow the generic installation instructions through tarball.
  





  

    You can install Passenger through Homebrew:
  
  
$ brew install passenger
  
After installation, please validate the install by running passenger-config validate-install. For example:
$ passenger-config validate-install
 * Checking whether this Phusion Passenger install is in PATH... ✓
 * Checking whether there are no other Phusion Passenger installations... ✓






  
Step 1: download and extract tarball
  
Download the latest Passenger source tarball.
  

    
      
      Download tarball
    
  
  

    Extract the tarball to some place permanent. Replace X.X.X with the Passenger version, and /somewhere-permanent with an actual directory path.
  
  
$ tar -xzvf passenger-X.X.X.tar.gz -C /somewhere-permanent

  
Step 2: install Ruby
  

  Passenger supports multiple languages and its core is written in C++, but its installer and administration tools are written in Ruby, so you must install Ruby.


  Even though Ruby is required, Ruby will normally not be loaded during normal operation unless you deploy a Ruby web application on Passenger. Passenger's dependency on Ruby is very minimal. See Lightweight Ruby dependency for details.


  

    
Debian, Ubuntu
    

      
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ruby rake
    
  
  

    
Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky, Alma, Fedora, Scientific Linux, Amazon Linux
    

      Enable EPEL, then run as root:
      
yum install -y ruby rubygem-rake
    
  
  

    
Arch Linux
    

      
sudo pacman -S ruby
    
  
  

    
macOS
    

      No action needed. Ruby is installed by default.
    
  
  

    
Other operating systems
    

      Install Ruby from the Ruby website.
    
  



  
Step 3: add Passenger to PATH
  

    Add the Passenger bin directory to your PATH, so that your shell can locate the Passenger commands.
  
  

    Open your shell's startup file. If you're using bash, this is usually /etc/bashrc or /etc/bash.bashrc. Inside that file, add this to the end:
  
  
PATH=/somewhere-permanent/passenger-X.X.X/bin:$PATH
export PATH
  

    Again, replace X.X.X with the Passenger version, and /somewhere-permanent with an actual directory path.
  
  

    When you're done, restart all your shells so that your new PATH takes effect.
  
  

    Make sure your bashrc is actually included by your bash profile, which might not be the case if you created the user with useradd instead of adduser for example.
  

  
Step 4: validate installation
  
After installation, please validate the install by running passenger-config validate-install. For example:
$ passenger-config validate-install
 * Checking whether this Phusion Passenger install is in PATH... ✓
 * Checking whether there are no other Phusion Passenger installations... ✓




## Installation in production

Installation in production is a bit different. We will cover that later in the deployment tutorial.

## Next step: The 'Passenger' command

Continue