Follow symlinks to get HUP reloading working

[streeter]

Based off a discussion thread on the mail list, I'm creating a ticket to track this. What started the discussion was my production setup.

I'm trying to deploy gunicorn 0.14.3 with django 1.4.1 and running into some issues with HUP'ing gunicorn to reload the code.

I've got a deploy setup where I symlink the current release to a directory and then switch the symlink to point to the next release on deploy. I want to send gunicorn a HUP signal to just reload the new code, but this isn't working as gunicorn starts and resolves it's current directory to be the absolute reference on the filesystem. So if the directory layout is like this:

/var/www/
    - current -> releases/<hash1>
    + releases/
        + <hash1>/
        + <hash2>/

However, when gunicorn starts in the directory /var/www/current/, it resolves it to /var/www/releases/hash1/ instead. So even though I switch current to point to hash2, sending a HUP to gunicorn will not pick up the new code.

[rduplain]

Mailing list discussion thread is here:
http://lists.gunicorn.org/user/0149.html

[sirkonst]

I think the true way to reload code is a graceful restart gunicorn. I use it in my project. HUP signal not for reload code, only for spawn new worker with currect and "stable" version's code.

[benoitc]

Using the new --cwd option should fix it.

[chuckg]

How does --cwd differ from --chdir?

[benoitc]

@chuckg I meant the --chdir option ... I - some times - need more cafe ;)