Capistrano exts is a set of helper tasks to help with the initial server configuration and application provisioning. Things like creating the directory structure, setting up that database, and other one-off you might find yourself doing by hand far too often. It provides many helpful post-deployment tasks to help you import/export database and contents as well as sync one stage with another.

Install the gem

gem install capistrano-exts

or add it to your Gemfile

gem 'capistrano-exts', '>=1.13.2', :require => false

First make sure you have capified your project, if not then run the following command on the root of your project:

$ capify .

Then open up config/deploy.rb and add the following to the top of the file

# Stages
# Stages can be really anything you want
set :stages, [:development, :staging, :production]
set :default_stage, :development

# Capistrano extensions
# Valid extensions: :multistage, :git, :mysql, :rails, :contao, :contents, :god, :unicorn, :servers
set :capistrano_extensions, [:multistage, :git, :mysql, :rails, :servers]

Then run the command

$ cap multistage:setup

This command will create default configuration files in the folder config/deploy, one configuration file for each stage you defined above, before deploying the project to a stage you should carefully edit the configuration files.

If you have edited the config files, the mysql and web server section, then you're ready to prepare the server using the command:

$ cap [stage] deploy:server:setup

You'd have to prepare the project's folder with the command:

$ cap [stage] deploy:setup

The project can be deployed with the plain old capistrano command:

$ cap [stage] deploy

Capistrano exts provide several tasks to help with your everyday development, like importing/exporting the database, importing/exporting the contents and sync two stages, sync is of course one way.

Assuming you're developing locally, for example using a CMS, when the project is ready for deployment, all you have to do is

1. Dump the database locally, for this example, I'll assume /tmp/project_db_dump.sql is the dump of your project's database
2. Import the database into the target server using the following command

$ cap [stage] mysql:import_db_dump /tmp/project_db_dump.sql

You can also import the contents from your local development (or a tarball from another server), using the command

$ cap [stage] contents:import /tmp/contents.tar.gz

N.B: The tarball will be extracted in shared/shared_contents so you should make sure you have the contents_folder in the configuration file of the stage.

If you want to export the database you can simply run

$ cap [stage] mysql:export_db_dump [sql_dump_file]

The sql_dump_file is of course optional, if not given a random file in /tmp will be created.

If you want to export the contents you can simply run

$ cap [stage] mysql:export_db_dump [contents_file]

The contents_file is of course optional, if not given a random file in /tmp will be created.

Capistrano exts has special tasks defined under the multistage namespace for syncing one stage with another, and the tasks are generate on runtime depending on the stages you have defined, for example, if you have a staging and a production stage, you can develop your application on the staging area and then sync one or both of the database and contents of the production stage with those of staging like so:

Sync the database only

$ cap multistage:sync:production_database_with_staging

Sync the contents only

$ cap multistage:sync:production_contents_with_staging

Sync both

$ cap multistage:sync:production_with_staging

Copyright (c) 2011 Wael Nasreddine wael.nasreddine@gmail.com

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