Setting up A Rails App with git & Capistrano on Dreamhost

Howto's for Getting an Initial Rails app setup on dreamhost with both Git and Capistrano for easy deployment and easy version control

This list is not exhuastive, but will work.

Create the domain (or subdomain) on dreamhost, and select passenger for rails setup. Also change the web directory from /public to /current/public.

Also setup the databases, and note the hostname

Create the rails app

rails myapp
cd myapp

Create a git repo

git init
touch temp/.gitignore log/.gitignore vendor/.gitignore

Setup a gitignore for the entire repo

vim .gitignore

.DS_Store
log/*.log
tmp/**/*
config/database.yml
db/*.sqlite3

Add files to repo

rm public/index.html
git add .
git commit -m "Initial Setup"

Make a clone of the repo to push to dreamhost

cd ..
git clone --bare myapp/.git myapp.git
scp -r myapp.git user@dreamhost:/home/user/repos
cd myapp
git remote add web user@dreamhost:/home/user/repos/myapp.git
git fetch web

Configure your database.yml file

vim config/database.yml

# SQLite version 3.x
#   gem install sqlite3-ruby (not necessary on OS X Leopard)
development:
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: db/development.sqlite3
  pool: 5
  timeout: 5000

# Warning: The database defined as "test" will be erased and
# re-generated from your development database when you run "rake".
# Do not set this db to the same as development or production.
test:
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: db/test.sqlite3
  pool: 5
  timeout: 5000

production:
  adapter: mysql
  encoding: utf8
  database: myapp_production
  username: yourdbuser
  password: yourdbpassword
  host: mysql.myhost
  port: 3306

Dreamhost shell setup

Setup a Shared directory for database config that shouldn't be in the git repo

ssh user@dreamhost mkdir myapp/shared exit

scp config/database.yml user@dreamhost:/home/user/myapp/

Capistrano

capify .
vim config/deploy.rb

set :application, "myapp"
set :repository,  "user@dreamhost:/home/user/repos/myapp.git"
set :user, "user"
set :domain, "dreamhost"
set :scm, :git
set :scm_command, "~/packages/bin/git" #updated version of git on server in user directory
set :local_scm_command, "/opt/local/bin/git" #correct path to local git
set :applicationdir, "/home/jnanney/mls.hugewaste.com"

# deploy config
set :deploy_to, applicationdir
set :deploy_via, :remote_cache

# additional settings
set :chmod755, "app config db lib public vendor script script/* public/disp*"
set :use_sudo, false

role :web, domain                           # Your HTTP server, Apache/etc
role :app, domain                           # This may be the same as your `Web` server
role :db,  domain, :primary => true         # This is where Rails migrations will run
# role :db,  "your slave db-server here"


namespace :deploy do
  desc "Tell Passenger to restart the app."
  task :start do ; end
  task :stop do ; end
  task :restart, :roles => :app, :except => { :no_release => true } do
    run "#{try_sudo} touch #{File.join(current_path,'tmp','restart.txt')}"
  end

  desc "Symlink shared configs and folders on each release."
  task :symlink_shared do
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/config/database.yml #{release_path}/config/database.yml"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/assets #{release_path}/assets"
  end

  desc "Sync the public/assets directory."
  task :assets do
    system "rsync -vr --exclude='.DS_Store' public/assets #{user}@#{application}:#{shared_path}/"
  end

end

after 'deploy:update_code',  'deploy:symlink_shared'

Commit Capistrano files to the repos

git add Capfile config/deploy.rb
git commit -a -m "Capified for dreamhost"
git push web

Deployment

cap deploy:setup
cap deploy:check
cap deploy:cold