Serving gem’s locally isn’t too hard these days.

sudo apt-get install rubygems

Populate /etc/init.d/gem-server with:

#!/bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          gem-server
# Required-Start:    $network $local_fs $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:     $network $local_fs $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: start local gem server
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

DAEMON="/usr/bin/gem"
OPTIONS="server --daemon"

# clear conflicting settings from the environment
unset TMPDIR

# See if the daemon is there
test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case "$1" in
	start)
    PID=$(ps ax -o pid,command | grep "gem server" | grep daemon | awk '{print $1}')
    if test -n "$PID" ; then
		  log_daemon_msg "Ruby Gem server already running : PID $PID" "gem-server"
    else
		  log_daemon_msg "Starting the Ruby Gem server" "gem-server"
		  $DAEMON $OPTIONS
    fi

		log_end_msg $?
		;;

	stop)
    PID=$(ps ax -o pid,command | grep "gem server" | grep daemon | awk '{print $1}')
    if test -n "$PID" ; then
	  	log_daemon_msg "Stopping the Ruby Gem server" "gem-server"
      kill $PID
    else
	  	log_daemon_msg "Ruby Gem server not running" "gem-server"
    fi

		log_end_msg $?
		;;

	restart|force-reload)
		$0 stop && sleep 2 && $0 start
		;;

	*)
		echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/gem-server {start|stop|restart|force-reload}"
		exit 1
		;;
esac

Then use the initscript to start it. If you want to serve gem’s out of a directory other than the default /var/lib/gems/1.8, then add “-d DIRECTORY” to the OPTIONS variable in the init script. Then install locally sourced gem’s with:

sudo gem install --source http://hostname:8808 gem_package