Passenger 5/6 requires a config.ru file to run Rails 2.3 projects

Put the following into config.ru in your Rails root folder:

# Require your environment file to bootstrap Rails
require ::File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/config/environment'

# Dispatch the request
run ActionController::Dispatcher.new

Otherwise, your Rails 2.3 project will not be considered by Passenger 5+ and you will probably see 403 errors returned by nginx or Apache.