hartcode / serverjuice

This is a little mini tool to assist with the initial configuration of an
Ubuntu VPS for Rails deployment using Passenger, Apache 2 and MySQL.

It has been tested on a linode.com VPS with their Ubuntu 9.04 distribution.


To use it, first clone the git repository:

  git clone git://github.com/sansdev/serverjuice.git

Then run the command with the hostname you wish to configure your VPS with:

  ./serverjuice totallyninja >serverjuice.sh

Optionally you can also specify a mysql root password:

  ./serverjuice totallyninja sosecure >serverjuice.sh


The tool simply generates a shell script on standard out. The safest way to
use the output is to collect it in a file and copy it to your blank server
where you can run it as root.

If you're feeling brave you can have the tool run the script directly on a
server:

  ./serverjuice --deploy mycoolserver.com totallyninja

This will ssh as root to mycoolserver.com and run the generated script.


I wrote this for Rails Rumble 2008 to save me some time on server setup.
There is a lot more that this script could do, but for now this is all I need.


Why would I write something like this when there are tools like deprec and
sprinkle?

There are two main reasons why I prefer this approach:

a) Transparency: Instead of running a tool locally that goes off and does
   various things on a server, you get a complete shell script that does
   the entire setup in one run. You can inspect the script, modify it, pick
   out parts of it, do anything you like with it before you actually run it.

b) Clarity: Because I rarely do slice deployment and system maintenance, it's
   important that I can refer back to what the setup process did a year later
   when I need to change something. Instead of having to read through the
   code of a tool to figure out exactly what it did when I ran it, I can just
   keep the deploy script and refer to it later on, or even re-run parts of it
   as I see fit.


This tool is open source and you are welcome to modify it, add to it, fork it,
play with it, and so on. Feel free to send me any improvements you make.


Author:

    Daniel Aborg


Contributors:

    Dan Pickett     - mysql root password and newer ruby version