Deploying

Mina provides the deploy command which queues up a deploy script for you.

# config/deploy.rb
set :domain, 'flipstack.com'
set :user, 'flipstack'
set :deploy_to, '/var/www/flipstack.com'
set :repository, 'http://github.com/flipstack/flipstack.git'

task :deploy do
  deploy do
    # Put things that prepare the empty release folder here.
    # Commands queued here will be ran on a new release directory.
    invoke :'git:clone'
    invoke :'bundle:install'

    # These are instructions to start the app after it's been prepared.
    to :launch do
      queue 'touch tmp/restart.txt'
    end

    # This optional block defines how a broken release should be cleaned up.
    to :clean do
      queue 'log "failed deployment"'
    end
  end
end

It works by capturing the queued commands inside the block, wrapping them in a deploy script, then queueing them back in.

How deploying works

Here is an example of a deploy! (Note that some commands have been simplified to illustrate the point better.)

Step 1: Build it

The deploy process builds a new temp folder with instructions you provide. In this example, it will do git:clone and bundle:install.

$ mina deploy --verbose
-----> Creating the build path
       $ mkdir tmp/build-128293482394
-----> Cloning the Git repository
       $ git clone https://github.com/flipstack/flipstack.git . -n --recursive
       Cloning... done.
-----> Installing gem dependencies using Bundler
       $ bundle install --without development:test
       Using i18n (0.6.0)
       Using multi_json (1.0.4)
       ...
       Your bundle is complete! It was installed to ./vendor/bundle

Step 2: Move it to releases

Once the project has been built, it will be moved to releases/. A symlink called current/ will be created to point to the active release.

$
-----> Moving to releases/4
       $ mv "./tmp/build-128293482394" "releases/4"
-----> Symlinking to current
       $ ln -nfs releases/4 current

Step 3: Launch it

Invoke the commands queued up in the to :launch block. These often commands to restart the webserver process. Once this in complete, you’re done!

$
-----> Launching
       $ cd releases/4
       $ sudo service nginx restart
-----> Done. Deployed v4

What about failure?

If it fails at any point, the release path will be deleted. If any commands are queued using the to :clean block, they will be ran. It will be as if nothing happened. Lets see what happens if a build fails:

$
-----> Launching
       $ cd releases/4
       $ sudo service nginx restart
       Starting nginx... error: can't start service
-----> ERROR: Deploy failed.
-----> Cleaning up build
       $ rm -rf tmp/build-128293482394
-----> Unlinking current
       $ ln -nfs releases/3 current
       OK

Mina › Deploying