Deploying Websites with Capistrano

How do you currently publish updates to your website? How do you undo changes if you've made a mistake?

Manually uploading files via FTP can lead to mistakes or downtime and are difficult to roll back. Other techniques such as remote repositories or post-receive hooks are better but can limit your ability to control the way updates are applied to the website.

Come learn how to streamline and automate the process of both deploying and rolling back updates to your website with Capistrano, a remote server automation tool.

Presentation given at Front Porch Conference in Dallas, TX
(video available at http://frontporch.io/andrew-turner/)

Transcript

1. Deploying Websites with Capistrano
   Andrew Turner, @galenandrew
   Front Porch Conference - Dallas, TX
   October 7, 2014
   

   View Slide

2. Common Deployment Methods
   • Server-side Editing
   • FTP Upload
   • File Syncing
   • Live Remote Repositories (i.e. version control on the server)
   • Post-receive Hooks / Webhooks
   • Third Party Deployment Services
   • Continuous Integration
   

   View Slide

3. Deployment Challenges
   • Often a manual process
   • High risk of error (easy to break things)
   • Potential downtime during upload / sync
   • No record or log of deployments
   • Typically not well documented or easily distributable
   • Difficult to manage for multiple environments
   • Updates are difficult to reverse
   …especially when a deployment crashes the live site!
   

   View Slide

4. Capistrano is a remote server automation and deployment tool
   that provides versioned releases and easy rollbacks.
   

   View Slide

5. How Capistrano Works
   • Deployment scripts are stored in your project
   • Executed locally from the command line (Ruby Gem)
   • Connects directly to your server via SSH
   • Checks out code from remote repository to your server
   • Performs automated tasks/commands on server (or locally)
   • Keeps deployment log and versioned releases
   • Provides easy ability to rollback releases
   

   View Slide

6. How Capistrano Works
   local server repository
   local connects to server via SSH
   server updates project code from repository
   deploy command is issued on local
   server issues a new release and logs deployment
   

   View Slide

7. Installation / Setup
   gem install capistrano
   Install Capistrano
   cap install
   Initialize Capistrano in your project
   Note: Run this command in the root directory of your project as it will create the necessary
   deployment files/folders
   

   View Slide

8. Usage
   cap production deploy
   Deploy
   cap production deploy:rollback
   Rollback
   

   View Slide

9. Directory Structure: local / project
   ├── Capfile
   └── config
   ├── deploy
   │ ├── production.rb
   │ └── staging.rb
   └── deploy.rb
   http://capistranorb.com/documentation/getting-started/preparing-your-application/
   

   View Slide

10. Directory Structure: server
    ├── current
    ├── releases
    │ ├── 20141007223313
    │ ├── 20140923125109
    │ └── 20140915181947
    ├── repo
    ├── shared
    └── revisions.log
    Note: Make sure to point your web host’s document root to current as it is a symlink to the latest release.
    For example, in the above current would be a symlink (alias) to 20141007223313
    

    View Slide

11. Resources
    • Official Capistrano Documentation

    http://capistranorb.com
    • Official Capistrano GitHub

    https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano
    • How To Use Capistrano to Automate Deployments: Getting Started

    https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-capistrano-to-
    automate-deployments-getting-started
    • WP-Deploy (A framework for deploying WordPress sites using
    Capistrano)

    https://github.com/mixd/wp-deploy
    • CSS-Tricks: Website Deployments

    http://css-tricks.com/deployment/
    

    View Slide