nginx 0.6.6 – make install fails

I’m trying to deploy a Rails app to a new server with Deprec and Capistrano Server Extensions (capserverext). The capistrano task fails when compiling nginx, during the `make install` bit. The make errors are something like this:

cp: cannot create regular file `/usr/local/nginx/conf/mime.types.default'
No such file or directory

I tried compiling nginx directly, to eliminate deprec and capserverext, and the problem persisted.

After much head beating, and with disbelief, I concluded that the problem was a bug in nginx. Hubristic, I know. But searching the nginx mailing list immediately turned up a message with a patch from the developer. The ‘@@’s in this patch is munged on the web, so I pastied it for your consumption.

The problem stems from the addition of a new configure option, --sysconfdir. This new option means that capserverext is going to need a change to the compile_nginx task.

Once patched, you can run configure with --sysconfdir=/usr/local/nginx/conf to meet capserverext’s assumptions. But having to patch the source breaks the whole install_nginx task anyway.

What you do, though, is bravely pretend that prepare_host is going to work. When it fails:

1. ssh into the server and cd to /usr/local/src/nginx-0.6.6/
2. wget http://pastie.caboo.se/84215.txt
3. patch -p0 < 84215.txt
4. run the configure script with the arguments from capserverext’s nginx recipe plus –sysconfdir=/usr/local/nginx/conf

   sudo ./configure --sbin-path=/usr/local/sbin \
     --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid \
     --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log \
     --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log \
     --with-http_ssl_module \
     --sysconfdir=/usr/local/nginx/conf

5. sudo make
6. sudo make install
7. rm /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf

Now nginx 0.6.6 should be installed on your server. Back on your dev machine run the following tasks to get back on track:

• cap install_nginx_start_script
• cap nginx_postgres_rails_setup ( or cap nginx_mysql_rails_setup, if you’re using mysql)

This gets you past the prepare_host task.

Here’s hoping this post becomes obsolete very soon.

Capifying a Merb application

UPDATE: I was embarrassed that I actually get hits on this post, so I’m adding a stripped down example deploy.rb.

Create a directory named config in the Merb root (not inside dist).

Create your deploy.rb file inside the config directory. Here’s a stripped down version of what I have used:

# ./config/deploy.rb
# Do your merb daemon configuration in ./dist/conf/merb.yml

set :application, "awesome_thingummy"
set :scm_name, "thingummy"
set :repository, "svn://thelese.com/merb/#{scm_name}/trunk"
set :checkout, "checkout"

# =============================================================================
# ROLES
# =============================================================================

role :web, "slice1.automatthew.com"
role :app, "slice1.automatthew.com"

# =============================================================================
# OPTIONAL VARIABLES
# =============================================================================
set :deploy_to, "/var/www/apps/#{application}"
set :user, "deployer"            # defaults to the currently logged in user

# set :scm, :darcs                  # defaults to :subversion
set :svn, "/opt/local/bin/svn"
set :merb, "/opt/local/bin/merb --merb-root #{deploy_to}/current"

task :spinner do
  run merb
end

task :restart do
  run "#{merb} -k all"
  run merb
end

task :update_code do
  run "#{svn} --quiet #{checkout} #{repository} #{release_path}"
end

task :after_update_code do
  run "ln -s #{shared_path}/log #{release_path}/log"
end

desc "Deploy the app"
task :deploy do
  transaction do
    update_code
    symlink
  end
  restart
end