title: How do I install rails on a Windows machine that uses a proxy server to get to the internet?
body: <p>I'm a big fan of the ruby way. However today it got in my way.</p>
  
  <p>The defacto way of installing rails (i'm running as a domain user on a WinXP machine) is</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>download and install ruby (one-click installer)</li>
  <li>type <code>&gt;gem install rails</code> at the command prompt</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Step 2 fails with some function getaddrhost not able to function. Some googling taught me that this is a known issue - <a href="http://rubygems.org/export/html/3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">See Authenticating Windows Proxy Problems on the rubygems FAQ</a></p>
  
  <p>The suggested options there to "use the <code>-p</code> or <code>--http-proxy http://proxy:port</code> " switch for gem install also didn't work any wonders.</p>
  
  <p>There's a link to something that runs a server to get across the proxy server - but it looked like it would need python to be installed (??!!). So I gave that a miss.</p>
  
  <p>I'm going to try to get the .gem files (after figuring out all the inter dependencies :( ) from <code>ruby_home\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\cache</code> on my rails-friendly home machine and USB-drive it across and do a local gem install. Does anyone have a less painful / quick way of bridging this divide?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update:</strong>
  Day2. Okay so I have the gems available locally. However if I do a </p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;gem install activesupport-1.4.4 --local
  ERROR:  Error installing gem activesupport-1.4.4[.gem]: undefined method `includ
  e?' for nil:NilClass
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've tried ruby once click installer for windows for 186-27 RC2 and 186-26 Final release. Same issue. More googling led to "<a href="http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2007/2/6/in-case-you-re-having-trouble-installing-gems" rel="nofollow noreferrer">In case you're having trouble installing gems...</a>".
  The latest workaround is to: delete the source_cache file in your GEM PATH folder shown by <code>gem env</code>, then do a <code>gem update --system</code>. and of course proxy server gets in the way of Step 2.</p>
  
  <p>Is this issue with gems fixed in some later release that I can download ?</p>