This is a draft…

Installing Vlad the Deployer

   1  gem install vlad

Configuring Vlad the Deployer

Add this to the end of RakeFile:

   1  begin
   2    require 'rubygems'
   3    require 'vlad'
   4    Vlad.load :scm => :git
   5  rescue LoadError => e
   6    puts "Unable to load Vlad #{e}."
   7  end

Note that we’re telling Vlad to use git. This snippet- gives you a quick introduction on how to use git with Rails.

Creating the deployment recipe

If you’re uncertain what these variables mean, have a look at the docs. This folder is also worth a look, and don’t forget to take a peek at the vlad source code.

   1  #
   2  # General configuration
   3  #
   4  set :ssh_flags,             '-p 666'
   5  set :application,           'xxx.com'
   6  set :domain,                '127.0.01'
   7  set :deploy_to,             '/var/www/xxx.com'
   8  set :repository,            '/var/lib/git/repositories/xxx.com/.git/'
   9  
  10  
  11  #
  12  # Mongrel configuration
  13  #
  14  set :mongrel_clean,         true
  15  set :mongrel_command,       'sudo mongrel_rails'
  16  set :mongrel_group,         'www-data'
  17  set :mongrel_port,          9000
  18  set :mongrel_servers,       3
  19  
  20  #set :mongrel_address,       '127.0.0.1'
  21  #set(:mongrel_conf)          { '#{shared_path}/mongrel_cluster.conf' }
  22  #set :mongrel_config_script, nil
  23  #set :mongrel_environment,   'production'
  24  #set :mongrel_log_file,      nil
  25  #set :mongrel_pid_file,      nil
  26  #set :mongrel_prefix,        nil
  27  #set :mongrel_user,          'mongrel'
  28  
  29  #
  30  # Customize Vlad to our needs
  31  #
  32  namespace :vlad do
  33    #
  34    # Add an after_update hook
  35    #
  36    remote_task :update do
  37      Rake::Task['vlad:after_update'].invoke
  38    end
  39  
  40    #
  41    # The after_update hook, which is run after vlad:update
  42    #
  43    remote_task :after_update do
  44    # Link to shared resources, if you have them in .gitignore
  45    #  run "ln -s #{deploy_to}/shared/system/database.yml #{deploy_to}/current/config/database.yml"
  46    end
  47  
  48    #
  49    # Deploys a new version of your application
  50    #
  51    remote_task :deploy => [:update, :migrate, :start_app]
  52  end

Setup the server

   1  $ rake vlad:setup

This will create the necessary folders and mongrel_cluster configuration file.

Deploy the application

Now deploy the application with vlad:deploy, which is a custom rake task that we added to the deployment recipe:

   1  $ rake vlad:deploy

Copying your SSH public key to the remote server

Vlad uses ssh for executing commands on the remotely, and rsync for copying the build to your server, which means you’ll quickly grow tired of typing your password each time a command is run.

This problem is solved by copying your public SSH keys to the remote server, this snippet- explains how to do exactly that.

DRAFT …

Install RubyGems

   1  http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/29548/rubygems-1.0.1.tgz
   2  
   3  tar zxvf rubygems-1.0.1.tgz
   4  
   5  cd rubygems-1.0.1
   6  
   7  ruby setup.rb

Install Rails

   1  gem install rails

Install sqlite3 (optional)

   1  apt-get install sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev
   2  gem install sqlite3-ruby

Install mongrel and mongrel_cluster

   1  $ gem install mongrel mongrel_cluster
   2  
   3  $ mongrel_rails cluster::configure -e production \
   4    -p 8000 \
   5    -a 127.0.0.1 \
   6    -N 3 \
   7    -c /var/www/xyz/current
   8  
   9  
  10  $ mongrel_rails cluster::start
  11  
  12  
  13  $ useradd -g www-data -d /var/www mongrel

Surviving reboots

   1  sudo mkdir /etc/mongrel_cluster
   2  
   3  sudo ln -s /var/www/xyz/config/mongrel_cluster.yml /etc/mongrel_cluster/xyz.yml
   4  
   5  sudo cp /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel_cluster-1.0.5/resources/mongrel_cluster /etc/init.d/
   6  
   7  sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster
   8  
   9  sudo /usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f mongrel_cluster defaults
  10  
  11  mongrel_cluster_ctl status

Stale pids

If your mongrels crash or if you kill them, mongrel_cluster won’t start your mongrels because mongrel_cluster believes the processes are still running, instead mongrel_cluster complains and does nothing:

   1  ** !!! PID file tmp/pids/mongrel.8000.pid already exists.  Mongrel could be running already.  Check your log/mongrel.8000.log for errors.
   2  ** !!! Exiting with error.  You must stop mongrel and clear the .pid before I'll attempt a start.

To fix this simply add the —clean switch to the /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel_cluster-1.0.5/resources/mongrel_cluster startup script:

   1  mongrel_cluster_ctl start -c $CONF_DIR --clean