Remember to include the host declaration in the database.yml file when you deploy to Dreamhost. Dreamhost does not use “localhost” which is typically the default setting when using the mysql adapter and developing locally or even on a small site.

At least for me, when I ported a Rails app to Dreamhost, this was the only “Gotcha”, because my log files were not reporting any errors and were instead serving the 500 something went wrong file.
A sample config/database.yml file

production:
  adapter: mysql
  username: youruser
  password: yourpasswd
  database: ror_production_db
  host: mysql.yourdomain.com

To port, I unpack my gems, if I haven’t already

rake gems:unpack

Then I freeze and package rails w/ my app just in case versions aren’t exact

rake rails:freeze:gems

Then I upload to Dreamhost!

Here is an example using the port 4567 to connect with over ssh and git

ssh remote add origin ssh://sean@seanbehan.com:4567/path/to/git
git push origin master

Login as the root user or as a user that can execute sudo commands.

#open this file for editing...
vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find the line that reads

Port 22

Change this to an different and an available port number…

Port 8000

Next reload ssh

/etc/init.d/ssh reload

You won’t be kicked out of your session. But if you want to open a new connection to your server you need to specify the port number for the connection.

ssh -p8000 root@yourdomain.com