Step by Step Deployment for Rails 3 with Capistrano Nginx/Unicorn Environment

this is a step-by-step deployment guide for rails 3 with capistrano, to set a nginx/unicorn/postgresql environment according to the railscast episodes by Ryan Bates, http://railscasts.com/episodes/337-capistrano-recipes and http://railscasts.com/episodes/335-deploying-to-a-vps

Production Stack

• ubuntu 10.04
• nginx
• unicorn
• postgres
• rbenv
• linode vps

Global Variables

• $USER : the linux server user to deploy the app (with sudo privileges)
• $RUBY_VERSION : the ruby version to use (ex: 1.9.2-p290)
• $GIT_REPO : the github address of the project (ex: [email protected]:fespinoz/perorg)
• $APP_NAME : the app name (ex: "personal_organizer")
• $DEPLOY_PATH : the basic root path to deploy (ex: "/home/#{user}/apps/#{application}")
• $SERVER : the IP address or public dns of the server (ex: "172.9.182.12" or "ec2asda.aws.com")
• $GIT_BRANCH : the git branch to deploy (ex: "master")

Steps

1. Check VPS (ex Linode)

   • purchase linode
   • rebuild
     • select ubuntu 10.04
     • set root password
   • view remote access

2. Create deployer user (ubuntu user also works fine)

   Add $USER user, only if needed, the user ubuntu works just fine

    adduser $USER --ingroup admin
   

3. Configure easy access to server

   3.1 To enter the server without password, ssh setup

    cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh $USER@$SERVER 'cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'
   

   3.2 enable capistrano's forward_agent option to use local ssh keys to deploy from github

    ssh-add # -K on Mac OS X
   

4. SetUp Git

    mate .gitignore # add config/database.yml
   
    cp config/database.yml config/database.example.yml
   
    git init
   
    git add .
   
    git commit -m "initial commit"
   
    git remote add origin $GIT_REPO
   
    git push
   

5. Installing and Setting Up Capistrano and Unicorn

   5.1 add capistrano and unicorn gems

   5.2 generating capistrano, unicorn and nginx config files

    	capify .
   

   5.2.1 copy the deploy.rb file and the recipes folder to your config/

   5.3 check configurations and set variables

    * deploy file
    * recipy files
   

   • Capfile (and uncomment the assets section) 5.4 commit deploy changes

     git add . git commit -m "deployment configs"

6. Install dependencies

   6.1 install git

    sudo apt-get install git-core
   

   6.2 Get to know github.com

    ssh [email protected]
   

   6.3 Then install dependencies with the capistrano recipes

    cap deploy:install
   

7. Launch deployment Setup

    cap deploy:setup # it will ask for the $USER password
   

8. Edit config files in $DEPLOY_PATH/shared

9. Deploying for the very first time

    cap deploy:cold
   

10. Extra Installation

    EX. Postfix if you want to send emails within your app

    * apt-get -y install telnet postfix