Capistrano Deployment.

Capistrano gets the latest version of the application from a given reposity and puts it online under a specific web domain.

Install Capistrano
1. install gem >gem install capistrano
2. check that worked out >cap -h

Setup app for Capistrano
1. in root directory of the application>capify

Configure Capistrano
(don't use cap deploy:cold - which is suposed to workout the configuration - you have to do the following once)
1. in app/config - edit the deploy.rb file

set :application, "nameofapp"
#Note: This will also be the name of the directory created for the app files
set :repository, "git@git.whateverthedomainis:whateverthenameis.git
#Note: This is the location of the repository of the application
set :deploy_to, "/full/path/from/server/root/directory/to/app/directory/on/server/#{application}
#Note: This is absolute location on the server where the application root directoy will be placed after being fetched from the repository
set :scm, :git
#Note: This is the resposity type (in this case a git)
set :scm_user, "name"
#Note: This is the user_name that is needed to access the repository. note: the need for a password is normally replaced by a ssh public key

set :user, "name"
#Note: This is the ssh username for the domain i.e. >ssh username@yourdomain.com

set :use_sudo, false
#Note: Capistrano will want to make some directorys on the server, it this is set to true it will use sudo before making them. I suggest to keep this false - capistrano does not need it and less things can go wrong, especially the first time.

set :branch, "whateverbranch"
#Note: The deal here is that after capistrano has cloned the repository on the server is will checkout this branch. I could not get this to work - and so expect the last version of the master branch to be checked out (at least with git and v2.5 of capistrano)

role :app, "yourdomain" # i.e. www.whatever.com
#Note: This is the address of the server that hosts the application server (i.e. mongrel, mod_rails etc)
role :web, "yourdomain" # i.e. www.whatever.com
#Note: This is the address of the server that hosts the webserver server (i.e. apache, etc)
role :db, "yourdomain" , :primary => true # i.e. www.whatever.com
#Note: This is the address of the server that hosts the database (i.e. mysql, postresql)
#Note: The :primary tells capistrano which server to run any migrations against.

Setup publickey of your server to access the application repository.
1. Login to server with a ssh shell session (i.e. >ssh name@dominnameofserver (i.e. ssh me@happy.com)) - If you are not working with public keys, then you should be asked for the password to access - after entering it you should be it.

2. cd to home on the server >cd

3. cd to the .ssh directory > cd .ssh
#Note: check for a file id_rsa.pub if its not there, then run ssh-keygen (just enter return at prompts)

3. enter on command line >more id_rsa.pub

4. Copy the key and add it to your existing repository key
Note: github.com and assembla.com have a web interface for your to do that if your repository is hosted there.

5. Check that that works by cloning the application repository by hand on the server

Freeze Rails.

>rake rails:freeze:gems

Vendorize gems #TODO.
If you are using gems but cannot install them on a sharehost then you have the option to vendorize them.

>rake gems:install
>rake gems:unpack:dependencies
>rake gems:build

Make Spin Script.
This is a small script in app/script/ called spin.rb
This script is called by capistrano after the app has been deployed to start the app and web server

#!/bin/sh

#{deploy_to}/current/script/process/spawner \
mongrel \
--environment=production \
--instances=1 \
--address=127.0.0.1 \
--port=#{port}

(#TODO Check the above)

Update Git repository.

git add .
git commit -m 'ready to deploy'
git push origin master

Deploy Setup.

git add .
git commit -m 'ready to deploy'
git push origin master

cap deploy:setup

Check Dependencies.

cap deploy:check

Deploy the Update.

cap deploy:update

Server stuff.
open a shh session on the server

>shh name@domin.xx
>cd to your app root directy
>rake RAILS_ENV=production db:schema:load
note: If this does not work - then obviously you will have to find out why and fix it before continuing.
>script/console production
note: The production environment should load up without any errors.
>>app.get("/")
note: This should return a status code of 200, 302 or similar.

Deploy Start.
On the local machine:

>cap deploy:start
note: This should return a status code of 200, 302 or similar.

Now everthing should have fired up and be working.