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

Environment-specific setup in Merb

Merb has production and development environments that act much like their Rails counterparts. While there aren’t separate files for environment-specific configuration, you can get the same effect using a case statement at the bottom of merb_init.rb like so.

This is also a good place to stick database configuration when your dev is different than your prod.