Using Different Repositories

When you use the brightbox command to create your config/deploy.rb file, it doesn't use source code management and instead deploys whatever is in the current directory. That's great for quick start, but as you develop the application you are going to want to tie the deployment into some sort of source code version control respository.

Capistrano comes with several 'deployment strategies' built in. All the repository examples on this page can use any of these strategies unless stated otherwise:

# the default behavior
set :deploy_via, :checkout

# use export, rather than checkout
set :deploy_via, :export

# keep a cached copy on the server.
set :deploy_via, :remote_cache

# checkout locally, then tar and gzip the copy
# and sftp it to the remote servers
set :deploy_via, :copy
set :copy_exclude, [".svn", ".git"]

# for tar+gzip+copy, but using an SCM export,
# rather than checkout
set :deploy_via, :copy
set :copy_strategy, :export

# for zip+copy, if you don't have tar or gzip handy
set :deploy_via :copy
set :copy_compression, :zip

# Keep a local checkout copy up to date and copy that.
set :deploy_via, :copy
set :copy_cache, true
set :copy_exclude, [".svn", ".git"]

Each Brightbox comes with a subversion repository in the home directory of the rails user.

To use this repository remove the default settings and add in the following:

set :local_repository, "svn+ssh://rails@<machine>.vm.brightbox.net/home/rails/subversion/<app-branch>"
set :repository, "file:///home/rails/subversion/<app-branch>"
set :scm, :subversion

You can use Ruby-power to create the paths in the usual fashion. For example

set :repository, "file:///home/#{user}/subversion/#{application}/trunk"
set :local_repository, repository.sub(%r{^file://}, "svn+ssh://#{user}@bbtest-001.vm.brightbox.net")
set :scm, :subversion

If your application is stored on a Git public repository, use the following settings

set :repository, <public clone url>
set :scm, :git
set :branch, <deployment branch>

For example:

set :repository, "git://github.com/GitAccount/myproject.git"
set :scm, :git
set :branch, "master"

If you have a password protected svn directory that your Brightbox can see, set the scm up as follows:

set :repository, "svn://<host>/<path to deployment branch>"
set :scm, :subversion
set :scm_username, <svn user>
set :scm_password, <svn password>

When you have a repository like this, it may be a good idea to have a user setup that has read only access to the repository and use this for deployment. Then you can put the :scm_username and :scm_password entries in your ~/.caprc file and they will be picked up for all your deployments.