Is there a way to update RubyGems offline?

Question

I am trying to install Ruby + WATIR to a Windows server which is in an isolated environment. Typically I would run the ruby installer followed by these two commands:

1) gem update --system

2) gem install watir

This is as per the instuctions here

The server I am now trying to install to does not have internet connectivity. This causes the commands above to fail.

Is there a way I can download the update packages required and copy them to the server to install locally?

Answer 1

When you do gem install it will search the current directory before looking to the remote source. You must specify the version if you are installing a local gem (see rubygems manual).

gem install copland-0.2.0.gem

I'm sorry, I don't know a way to update the gem system offline without doing a manual upgrade

Answer 2

I usually use

gem unpack blah-1.1.1.gem

to unpack the gem into individual Ruby files. Then you just need to make sure that directory is in your Ruby load path, and it's as good as a normal gem.