App Deployment with Capistrano

This is a simple PHP calculator that you will deploy into an AWS EC2 instance using capistrano.

Capistrano is a Ruby-based tool, so you’ll need to configure it with scripts for deployment tasks such as uploading code, restarting services, and setting up dependencies.

Below is a step by step guide on installing, setting up and deploying using capistrano.

1. Install Capistrano

Ensure you have Ruby installed, then install Capistrano and any necessary plugins:
gem install capistrano
gem install capistrano-composer # If you're using Composer for PHP dependencies

2. Initialize Capistrano

Run the following command in your project directory to set up Capistrano:
cap install
This creates the following structure:
├── Capfile
├── config
│ ├── deploy.rb
│ ├── deploy
│ │ └── production.rb
│ │ └── staging.rb
├── lib
│ └── capistrano
│ └── tasks

3. Configure deploy.rb

Edit the config/deploy.rb file to define global settings for your deployment:

config/deploy.rb

Application name
set :application, "php_app"

Repository URL (use your git repository)
set :repo_url, "git@github.com:yourusername/your-php-app.git"

Deployment directory on the server
set :deploy_to, "/var/www/#{fetch(:application)}"

PHP-specific configurations
set :php_path, "/usr/bin/php" # Path to PHP binary
set :composer_install_flags, '--no-dev --quiet --optimize-autoloader' # Composer flags

Files and directories to be linked between deployments
append :linked_files, "config/database.php"
append :linked_dirs, "storage", "vendor"

Number of releases to keep
set :keep_releases, 5

4. Configure Environment Files

Edit config/deploy/production.rb and config/deploy/staging.rb to define server-specific settings:

Example: config/deploy/production.rb
server "your-server-ip", user: "your-username", roles: %w{app web db}, primary: true

Define the branch to deploy
set :branch, "main"

Example: config/deploy/staging.rb
server "your-staging-server-ip", user: "your-username", roles: %w{app web db}, primary: true

Define the branch to deploy
set :branch, "develop"

5. Add Deployment Tasks

Define custom tasks in the Capfile or lib/capistrano/tasks directory to automate deployment steps. For example:

Restarting Apache: Capfile namespace :deploy do after :publishing, :restart do on roles(:app) do execute :sudo, :systemctl, :restart, "apache2" end end end

Running Composer (if applicable): Capfile require "capistrano/composer"

6. Deploy Using Capistrano

To deploy your application, run: cap production deploy

Capistrano will:

Clone the repository. Upload it to the deployment directory. Perform tasks like restarting services or running Composer.

7. Automate Deployment (Optional)

To fully automate deployment (e.g., using CI/CD pipelines):

Add Capistrano commands to your CI/CD pipeline (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI). Use an SSH key for secure access to your servers. Trigger the pipeline when changes are pushed to the repository.

8. Optional: deploy.rb Configuration for Automation

You can define additional hooks for automated steps like running tests or cleaning up:#

Run tests before deployment before "deploy:starting", "deploy:run_tests"

namespace :deploy do
desc "Run tests"
task :run_tests do
    on roles(:app) do
    within release_path do
        execute :php, "artisan test" # Example for Laravel; modify as needed\
    end
    end
end
end