I'm planning to create a website on dreamhost using Ruby on Rails.
While reading through the wiki on dreamhost, I realized that I have to transfer my local files to the server using svn & capistrano. And Passenger is used by dreamhost to deploy my application.
Can anyone explain the workflow invovled in this?
More details:
As per the details on the dreamhost wiki page on svn, I created a subdomain for the svn repository at http://svn.mywebsite.com/project . I can commit my local changes to this location. But I'm not sure how the files at this directory are moved over to the main website .. i.e. http://www.mywebsite.com Is it done by Capistrano or Passenger?
Passenger is the module loaded by Apache to run and display your Rack based applications which include Rails. Capistrano is used to remotely run commands to checkout and deploy your application from svn. SVN is obviously used to store and version your application. The workflow is as follows:
Write code
Check-in to svn
Deploy with Capistrano
Capistrano checks code out of svn
into a folder which Passenger is
configured to watch.
Passenger notices the changes and
reloads your application.
Capistrano is the tool that does the deployment. It can checkout the files from svn either directly to where the deployment happens (if it has ssh access) or locally and then use ftp/sftp/scp to copy to the deployment area. Passenger is the Apache module that let Apache understand how to serve up your application once it's deployed.
Related
I am new to Ruby on Rails. My questions is:
Is it possible to setup Redmine and install the plugins on my local machine (macOS Sierra), test the Redmine application on localhost, once everything has been done successfully, then only deploy it on a Linux server?
If it is possible, which part of the code should I modify in order to deploy it on Linux server successfully? (Both of my local machine and Linux server are running MySQL database)
Yes it is possible and you don't need to change any part of the Redmine code to do so. Deployment of Rails apps is often done with a tool called Capistrano (http://capistranorb.com/), which executes through ssh on your server, checks out the code and does any additional installation steps necessary. This approach requires you to have your app (Redmine and plugins in your case) in a git repository (or subversion etc). In the simplest case, fork redmine on github and add any plugins as git submodules.
As you're unfamiliar with the platform I'd suggest to start with a simple rails app that you create locally. once you have worked out deployment of that to a remote server, tackle Redmine.
Sounds like a lot of upfront effort but it's worth it since it enables you to work on your local machine, make changes and then deploy the changed code with a single command.
If the Redmine installation on your local host has the same installation path as on the production server, then you can just copy the installation files to the production server. You will also have to copy the database to the production server.
If the installation path is different on your local host and production server, then you will have to install the Redmine and plugin on your production server
I have made an app with the use of Git and Heroku.
I'm curious if i can deploy Ruby on Rails locally without using Git.
If you aren't going to deploy to Heroku, you don't technically need Git at all. Just delete the .git folder. Given that Git is a great tool however, doing this is a bad idea.
You can deploy a Rails app locally, and the typical way to do this is with Apache and Passenger ( I'm assuming you are using a flavor of linux, OSX may have a host running already ).
It has been a while since I had done this, but this page seems to have the right idea:
https://nathanhoad.net/how-to-ruby-on-rails-ubuntu-apache-with-passenger
Rails s or rails server (in terminal) and you have localhost:3000. This is your local rails program and is incredibly convienent for development. Of course you need to be in the directory of your program to deploy it on localhost
I've been working on a rails project for a client that isn't technical. However, they want me to send over a deployment script, which their networks guys will use to deploy the application.
I've been using capistrano. But the problem is, cap is heavily dependent on the app itself. What i need is a script, that'd use the cap and config/deploy.rb but needs minimal setup on their local systems. The repo in the backbone is git based.
If this cant be achieved by capistrano, anyone knows of any other deployment utilities, that'd allow me stuff cap does and works independently? .. (i create symlinks and run some rake tasks in my :after_update block).
Thanks,
Hassan
If setting up a ruby environment to run cap deploy is not something that the "network guys" will be willing to do, then you're in for quite an uphill battle. Some suggestions to help alleviate this:
Have them use the railsready script to set up their environment
Give them a virtual machine (maybe a Vagrant box?) that can be used to deploy the instance
If you're doing a git-based deploy, you'll either have to set up a deployer key (and give this to them) or add them to your github project (assuming you're using github)
Consider bundling up the entire project and delivering as a tarball (or putting it into an rpm) and having them deploy this way (a quick&dirty way to do this is to deploy to a machine running the same distro as production, and tarring up the deployment directory)
Consider using a stack that more aligns with their network stack, like JRuby and warbler for deploying to Tomcat
Do some pair programming or at least screen sharing for the initial install. Sometimes the difference between loving and hating a platform comes down to the availability of help when problems arise.
Mina is like Capistrano but doesn't rely on being inside the rails application directory.
One option could be to setup something like Jenkins that will use capistrano to deploy. And your client can curl the jenkins build url to trigger a deploy.
On my local dev machine I am coding on (ubuntu), I am using the built in rails server (webrick):
rails s
I want to sometimes test things out on a local copy of phusion passenger that I am going to install.
How can I automate pushing the files to my phusion passenger server?
Would a simple script that copies the contents of the folder suffice?
Is it easier to setup capistrano?
Copying the folder would suffice (assuming all of your environment details are the same).
Personally I would just clone my git repository (not sure if you are using source control) into the appropriate folder.
Do you upload your rail application to your host via FTP first?
I'm currently using Passenger and Capistrano. If I do "cap deploy" in my local machine then I think Capistrano should upload my rail application to my host, right?
Someone from my host is saying that I need to run "cap deploy" in server. I think it doesn't make sense.
You should be able to run cap deloy on your local machine and that should get the current version of your software to the server. However, you need to set up first how this is supposed to happen. I for example use Git to manage my code and also use it to get my software on the server. However, you could also use SVN or FTP if you prefer that. If you google for Capistrano together with the Software youbeant to transfer the code with and maybe even your hosting providers name, you probably will find a decent step by step explanation. For me John Numemaker's post on deploying with Capistrano and Git on Dreamhost really helped: http://railstips.org/blog/archives/2008/12/14/deploying-rails-on-dreamhost-with-passenger/
As an alternative you also might want to check out heroku.com. Their smallest offer is free and enough for most projects. The deployment process is so easy a monkey could deploy a Rails app on their platform. I generally can only recommend heroku.