Capistrano, Mongrel, and Mongrel_cluster Redux

Over a year ago, I wrote a post about how to get the then-new Mongrel_cluster working with Capistrano. Since then, I have not had to touch my deployment config again.

2 days ago I needed to do a new deployment config and I thought I’d look at my config again. In reflection, it a bit dodgy, but at the time it was the best way! Honest! Also I note that in my original post, there’s broken links, and also that it is still far and away the most popular content on my site (direct links were almost 25% of the traffic!), so best to make it all new-like.

What do you do these days then?

1. Get yourself mongrel and install the mongrel_cluster gem too:
   # sudo gem install mongrel mongrel_cluster –include-dependencies
2. Go to the root of your Rails app
3. Get a mongrel_cluster config:
   # mongrel_rails cluster::configure -e production \
   -p 8000 \
   -a 127.0.0.1 \
   -N 3 \
   -c /path/to/the/application’s/current
4. Open up the /config/deploy.rb file and add:
   require ‘mongrel_cluster/recipes’
   set :mongrel_conf, “#{current_path}/config/mongrel_cluster.yml”

You’ll still need to add the @restart task something like this to ensure that the app comes up with the box:

@restart cd /path/to/the/application's/current && mongrel_rails cluster::start


Use cap cold_deploy to launch your app for the first time, and cap deploy to redeploy (cap deploy_with_migrations for your db updates too.)

Then all you need to do in configure your favourite proxy to serve the app from ports 80/443/whatever, and you’re good to go. I am using Apache 2.2, but perhaps soon I’ll have time to set up Swiftiply…