ec2onrails 0.9.8.1 → 0.9.9

data/History.txt

@@ -1,12 +1,30 @@
-== 0.9.8.1 2007-05-20
+== 0.9.9 2008-07-01
+
+* ami-c9bc58a0 (32-bit) and ami-cbbc58a2 (64-bit)
+* This is another test release, still not intended to be production-ready. Look for version 1.0. Almost there!!
+* Updated to Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy"
+* Added new required option to :ec2onrails_config in deploy.rb: ec2onrails_config[:archive_to_bucket_subdir] is used by the ec2onrails:db:archive Capistrano task. See http://ec2onrails.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/documentation/examples/deploy.rb
+* Database backup script parameters changed, now takes --reset to reset the binary logs, no longer takes --no-reset (not resetting the binary logs is now the default)
+* Database backup script no longer resets binary log file numbering
+* Now includes Rails 2.1.0 (still includes 2.0.2 and 1.2.6)
+* Incremental database backup frequency increased to every 5 minutes since it's very inexpensive to do
+* No longer randomize passwords on startup since they're disabled already
+* Installed git-core package
+* MySQL backup and restore scripts now use /mnt/tmp instead of /tmp for temp files in case database dump files are huge
+* MySQL backup now uses --create-options option on mysqldump to preserve MySQL-specific create table options
+* Built with ec2ubuntu build script version 68 (http://alestic.com)
+* Updated Capistrano tasks to work with Capistrano 2.4.3
+
+
+== 0.9.8.1 2008-05-20
 
 * ami-b657b2df (32-bit) and ami-8957b2e0 (64-bit) (same AMI's as 0.9.8, this is an update to the RubyGem only)
 * This is another test release, still not intended to be production-ready. Look for version 1.0. Almost there!!
 * Bug fix: if :ec2onrails[:enable_ssl] = true the setup task fails due to /etc/init.d/apache2 not executable
-* Bug fix: retry the the first mysqld startup, because on first startup sometimes the /etc/init.d/mysql startup script thinks it failed because mysqld took too long to physically write the logs full.
+* Bug fix: retry if needed on the first mysqld startup, because on first startup sometimes the /etc/init.d/mysql startup script thinks it failed because mysqld took too long to physically write the logs full.
 
 
-== 0.9.8 2007-05-19
+== 0.9.8 2008-05-19
 
 * ami-b657b2df (32-bit) and ami-8957b2e0 (64-bit)
 * This is another test release, still not intended to be production-ready. Look for version 1.0. Almost there!!

data/config/hoe.rb

@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ hoe = Hoe.new(GEM_NAME, VERS) do |p|
   
   # == Optional
   p.changes = p.paragraphs_of("History.txt", 0..1).join("\\n\\n")
-  p.extra_deps = [['capistrano', '>= 2.3.0'], ['archive-tar-minitar', '>= 0.5.1'], ['optiflag', '>= 0.6.5']]     # An array of rubygem dependencies [name, version], e.g. [ ['active_support', '>= 1.3.1'] ]
+  p.extra_deps = [['capistrano', '= 2.4.3'], ['archive-tar-minitar', '>= 0.5.1'], ['optiflag', '>= 0.6.5']]     # An array of rubygem dependencies [name, version], e.g. [ ['active_support', '>= 1.3.1'] ]
   
   #p.spec_extras = {}    # A hash of extra values to set in the gemspec.
   

data/lib/ec2onrails/recipes.rb

@@ -64,7 +64,8 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
     DESC
     task :start, :roles => :app_admin do
       run_init_script("mongrel", "start")
-      sudo "sleep 30 && monit -g app monitor all" # give the service 30 seconds to start before attempting to monitor it
+      run "sleep 30" # give the service 30 seconds to start before attempting to monitor it
+      sudo "monit -g app monitor all"
     end
     
     desc <<-DESC
@@ -169,7 +170,7 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
         unless hostnames_for_role(:db, :primary => true).empty?
           db_config = YAML::load(ERB.new(File.read("config/database.yml")).result)[rails_env.to_s]
           cfg[:db_name] = db_config['database']
-          cfg[:db_user] = db_config['username']
+          cfg[:db_user] = db_config['username'] || db_config['user'] 
           cfg[:db_password] = db_config['password']
           cfg[:db_host] = db_config['host']
           cfg[:db_socket] = db_config['socket']
@@ -197,6 +198,11 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
         on_rollback { drop }
         load_config
         start
+        
+        # For some reason the default db on Hardy contains users with '' as the name.
+        # This causes authentication problems when connecting from localhost
+        run %{mysql -u root -D mysql -e "delete from user where User = ''; flush privileges;"}
+        
         run %{mysql -u root -e "create database if not exists #{cfg[:db_name]};"}
         run %{mysql -u root -e "grant all on #{cfg[:db_name]}.* to '#{cfg[:db_user]}'@'%' identified by '#{cfg[:db_password]}';"}
         run %{mysql -u root -e "grant reload on *.* to '#{cfg[:db_user]}'@'%' identified by '#{cfg[:db_password]}';"}
@@ -204,7 +210,7 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
       end
       
       desc <<-DESC
-        Make sure the MySQL server has been started, just in case the db role 
+        [internal] Make sure the MySQL server has been started, just in case the db role 
         hasn't been set, e.g. when called from ec2onrails:setup.
         (But don't enable monitoring on it.)
       DESC
@@ -212,7 +218,7 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
         sudo "chmod a+x /etc/init.d/mysql"
         # The mysql init script can fail on the first startup if mysql takes too long 
         # to create the logfiles, so try again
-        sudo "/etc/init.d/mysql start || (sleep 10 && /etc/init.d/mysql start)"
+        sudo "sh -c '/etc/init.d/mysql start || (sleep 10 && /etc/init.d/mysql start)'"
       end
       
       desc <<-DESC
@@ -246,10 +252,10 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
       desc <<-DESC
         Dump the MySQL database to the S3 bucket specified by \
         ec2onrails_config[:archive_to_bucket]. The filename will be \
-        "app-<timestamp>.sql.gz".
+        "database-archive/<timestamp>/dump.sql.gz".
       DESC
       task :archive, :roles => :db do
-        run "/usr/local/ec2onrails/bin/backup_app_db.rb --noreset --bucket #{cfg[:archive_to_bucket]} --dir database-#{Time.new.strftime('%Y-%m-%d--%H-%M-%S')}"
+        run "/usr/local/ec2onrails/bin/backup_app_db.rb --bucket #{cfg[:archive_to_bucket]} --dir #{cfg[:archive_to_bucket_subdir]}"
       end
       
       desc <<-DESC
@@ -267,7 +273,7 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
         make sense).
       DESC
       task :init_backup, :roles => :db do
-        run "/usr/local/ec2onrails/bin/backup_app_db.rb"
+        run "/usr/local/ec2onrails/bin/backup_app_db.rb --reset"
       end
     end
     
@@ -435,7 +441,7 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
         Set the email address that mail to the admin user forwards to.
       DESC
       task :set_admin_mail_forward_address, :roles => all_admin_role_names do
-        put cfg[:admin_mail_forward_address], "/home/admin/.forward"
+        put cfg[:admin_mail_forward_address], "/home/admin/.forward" if cfg[:admin_mail_forward_address]
       end
 
       desc <<-DESC

data/lib/ec2onrails/version.rb

@@ -20,11 +20,12 @@ module Ec2onrails #:nodoc:
   module VERSION #:nodoc:
     MAJOR = 0
     MINOR = 9
-    TINY  = 8
-    GEM_UPDATE  = 1
-    STRING = [MAJOR, MINOR, TINY, GEM_UPDATE].join('.')
+    TINY  = 9
+    # GEM_UPDATE  = 0
+    # STRING = [MAJOR, MINOR, TINY, GEM_UPDATE].join('.')
+    STRING = [MAJOR, MINOR, TINY].join('.')
     
-    AMI_ID_32_BIT = 'ami-b657b2df'
-    AMI_ID_64_BIT = 'ami-8957b2e0'
+    AMI_ID_32_BIT = 'ami-c9bc58a0'
+    AMI_ID_64_BIT = 'ami-cbbc58a2'
   end
 end

data/website/index.html

@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
     <h1>EC2 on Rails</h1>
     <div id="version" class="clickable" onclick='document.location = "http://rubyforge.org/projects/ec2onrails"; return false'>
       <p>Get Version</p>
-      <a href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/ec2onrails" class="numbers">0.9.8.1</a>
+      <a href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/ec2onrails" class="numbers">0.9.9</a>
     </div>
     <h2>Deploy a Ruby on Rails app on <span class="caps">EC2</span> in five minutes</h2>
 
@@ -44,11 +44,19 @@ that&#8217;s ready to run a standard Ruby on Rails application with little or no
 It&#8217;s a Ruby on Rails <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance">virtual appliance</a>.</p>
 
 
-	<p>If you have an <span class="caps">EC2</span> account and a public keypair you&#8217;re five minutes away from deploying
+	<p>If you have an <span class="caps">EC2</span> account and can start <span class="caps">EC2</span> instances you&#8217;re five minutes away from deploying
 your Rails app.</p>
 
 
-	<p><em>Deploying a simple rails app is simple, and complex customization (if required) is possible.</em></p>
+	<p><span class="caps">EC2</span> on Rails is <a href="http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch04_Make_Opinionated_Software.php">opinionated software</a>:
+the opinion is that for many rails apps the server setup can be generalized
+and shared the same way as the web application framework itself. For many people (Twitter, this isn&#8217;t for you) 
+the server image can be treated the same way as other shared libraries. And if the day comes when your needs are
+unique enough that <span class="caps">EC2</span> on Rails can&#8217;t be configured to work for you then you can bundle your own image from it
+or fork the build source and customize it.</p>
+
+
+	<p>But until then, why spend your time configuring servers?</p>
 
 
 	<p>Features of the <span class="caps">EC2</span> image:</p>
@@ -56,34 +64,42 @@ your Rails app.</p>
 
 	<ul>
 	<li>Ready to deploy a Rails app with little or no configuration of the server required</li>
-		<li>Automatic backup of MySQL database to S3 (full backup nightly + incremental backup using binary logs every 10 minutes)</li>
+		<li>Automatic backup of MySQL database to S3 (full backup nightly + incremental backup using binary logs every 5 minutes)</li>
 		<li>Capistrano tasks to customize the server image, archive and restore the database to/from S3, and more (available as a rubygem)</li>
 		<li>Mongrel_cluster behind Apache 2.2, configured according to 
   <a href="http://blog.codahale.com/2006/06/19/time-for-a-grown-up-server-rails-mongrel-apache-capistrano-and-you/">Coda Hale&#8217;s excellent guide</a></li>
-		<li>Ruby on Rails 2.0.2 and 1.2.6</li>
+		<li>Ruby on Rails 2.1.0, 2.0.2 and 1.2.6</li>
 		<li>Ruby 1.8.6</li>
 		<li>MySQL 5</li>
 		<li><a href="http://www.danga.com/memcached/">memcached</a></li>
-		<li><a href="http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/">monit</a> system monitoring</li>
-		<li>Ubuntu 7.10 &#8220;Gutsy&#8221; base image built using <a href="http://alestic.com/">Eric Hammond&#8217;s <span class="caps">EC2</span> Ubuntu script</a></li>
+		<li><a href="http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/">monit</a> configured to monitor apache, mongrel, mysql, memcached, drive space and system load</li>
+		<li>Ubuntu 8.04 <span class="caps">LTS</span> &#8220;Hardy&#8221; base image built using <a href="http://alestic.com/">Eric Hammond&#8217;s <span class="caps">EC2</span> Ubuntu script</a></li>
 		<li><span class="caps">SSL</span> support</li>
 		<li>Amazon <span class="caps">AMI</span> tools installed</li>
-		<li>A script to rebundle a customized version of the image in one step if required</li>
 		<li>MySQL, Apache, and syslog configured to use /mnt for data and logging so you don&#8217;t fill up <span class="caps">EC2</span>&#8217;s small root filesystem</li>
 		<li>Automatically archives Rails and Apache logs to S3 nightly.</li>
 		<li>32-bit and 64-bit images available (supports all instance types, small to extra large).</li>
 		<li>Created using a build file, full source is <a href="http://rubyforge.org/scm/?group_id=4552">available</a> (the <span class="caps">EC2</span> on Rails script is run from <a href="http://alestic.com/">Eric Hammond&#8217;s <span class="caps">EC2</span> Ubuntu script</a>)</li>
-		<li>Supports multiple instances</li>
+		<li>Can be used as a clustered Rails app running on multiple instances</li>
 		<li>Automatically runs hourly, daily, weekly and monthly scripts if they exist in Rails application&#8217;s script directory</li>
-		<li>Local <span class="caps">SMTP</span> server (postfix)</li>
+		<li>Local <a href="http://www.postfix.org/">Postfix</a> SMTP mail server (only available from within the instance, not listening on external network interfaces)</li>
 	</ul>
 
 
 	<h2>Using the image</h2>
 
 
-	<p>This documentation will be improved soon, for now hopefully this covers the basics. 
-For the <span class="caps">AMI</span> id&#8217;s of the current images see the <a href="http://ec2onrails.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/gem/History.txt">change log</a>.</p>
+	<p>This documentation will be improved soon, for now hopefully this covers the basics.</p>
+
+
+The current <span class="caps">AMI</span> id&#8217;s are:
+	<ul>
+	<li>ami-c9bc58a0 (32-bit)</li>
+		<li>ami-cbbc58a2 (64-bit)</li>
+	</ul>
+
+
+	<p><em>I will keep these images for as long as possible, they will not be deleted for at least a few years.</em></p>
 
 
 	<h4>1. Install the gem</h4>
@@ -102,11 +118,10 @@ and
 in the config folder.</p>
 
 
-	<p>Be sure to customize those files and read the comments.</p>
+	<p><em>Be sure to customize those files and read the comments.</em></p>
 
 
-	<p>Also, if you&#8217;re using a separate instance for the database, use the hostname &#8220;db_primary&#8221; 
-in your database.yml file. After running &#8220;cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles&#8221; it will resolve
+	<p>Also, use the hostname &#8220;db_primary&#8221; in your database.yml file. After running &#8220;cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles&#8221; it will resolve
 to the instance defined in your Capistrano &#8220;db&#8221; role.</p>
 
 
@@ -115,7 +130,7 @@ to the instance defined in your Capistrano &#8220;db&#8221; role.</p>
 
 	<p>There is nothing <span class="caps">EC2</span> on Rails-specific here yet (though soon there will be a Capistrano task to do this for you), 
 if you&#8217;ve started <span class="caps">EC2</span> instances before you can skip this section. Otherwise, I&#8217;m not going to lie, this part is complicated
-the first time.</p>
+and will take a lot more than 5 minutes the first time.</p>
 
 
 	<p>Read the 
@@ -123,8 +138,8 @@ the first time.</p>
 in Amazon&#8217;s getting started guide.</p>
 
 
-	<p>For the <span class="caps">AMI</span> id&#8217;s of the current images see the <a href="http://ec2onrails.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/gem/History.txt">change log</a>
-or do <code>cap ec2onrails:ami_ids</code> from within the app that you configured in the previous step.</p>
+	<p>For the <span class="caps">AMI</span> id&#8217;s of the current images do <code>cap ec2onrails:ami_ids</code> from within the app that you 
+configured in the previous step (they&#8217;re also listed earlier on this page).</p>
 
 
 	<p><em><span class="caps">NOTE</span>: Only use the images that match the current version of the gem.</em></p>
@@ -146,8 +161,9 @@ use the app user to deploy the app, and the admin user for server admin tasks
 that require sudo.</p>
 
 
-	<p>Double-check <a href="http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-08-29/GettingStartedGuide/running-an-instance.html">your firewall settings</a>. 
-Be sure that you haven&#8217;t allowed public access to any ports other than <span class="caps">TCP 22</span> and <span class="caps">TCP 80</span>.
+	<p><span class="caps">IMPORTANT</span>: Double-check <a href="http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-08-29/GettingStartedGuide/running-an-instance.html">your firewall settings</a>. 
+Be sure that you haven&#8217;t allowed public access to any ports other than <span class="caps">TCP 22</span> and <span class="caps">TCP 80</span>
+(and possibly <span class="caps">TCP 443</span> if you&#8217;re going to enable <span class="caps">HTTPS</span>).
 If you&#8217;re using multiple instances, be sure to allow them network access to each other.</p>
 
 
@@ -170,7 +186,8 @@ key file, the public key is on the server. But for some reason
 	<h4>6. Deploy the app with Capistrano</h4>
 
 
-	<p>Now that the gem is installed, your deploy.rb is configured and you can start and stop <span class="caps">EC2</span> instances, this is the only thing you&#8217;ll need to do from now on.</p>
+	<p>Now that the gem is installed, your deploy.rb is configured and you can start and stop <span class="caps">EC2</span> instances, 
+this is the only thing you&#8217;ll need to do from now on.</p>
 
 
 <pre>
@@ -189,106 +206,78 @@ create your database.</p>
 	<h2>Capistrano tasks</h2>
 
 
-	<p>I&#8217;ll post full documentation for the Capistrano tasks soon, in the meantime here&#8217;s a brief summary:</p>
+	<p><a href="http://capify.org">Capistrano</a> is the most commonly used Rails deployment tool. It comes with many standard &#8220;tasks&#8221;,
+and the <span class="caps">EC2</span> on Rails gem includes Capistrano tasks specifically for configuring the server instance.</p>
 
 
-Server config tasks. These run as the admin user. You can specify lists of
-gems and Ubuntu packages to be installed. The deploy_files task uploads
-files to the server (they will be owned by root). It&#8217;s intended mainly for
-customized config files for new packages installed via the install_packages
-task.
-	<ul>
-	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:deploy_files</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:set_timezone</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:upgrade_gems</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:upgrade_packages</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:install_gems</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:install_packages</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:upgrade_and_install_all</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:restart_services</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles</code>
-- Customizes each instance for it&#8217;s role(s) (as defined in your Capistrano deploy.rb file).
-For now this just makes sure that only the appropriate services (Apache, Mongrel, and/or MySQL)
-are running. Eventually this will customize settings for the running services also. Note that
-an instance can have more than one role. If there&#8217;s only one instance it will have all roles.</li>
-	</ul>
+	<p>Capistrano is run from the command-line using the &#8220;cap&#8221; command, with a task name given as an argument.</p>
 
 
-Database management tasks: archive and restore can operate on any specified S3 bucket. 
-For example, I use this to restore the current production data (from my actual production backup
-bucket) onto a staging server that has the current production version of my
-app. I then deploy the new version which tests migrations exactly as they&#8217;ll
-run on the production server.
-	<ul>
-	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:archive</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:restore</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:create</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:drop</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:recreate</code></li>
-		<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:set_root_password</code></li>
-	</ul>
+	<h3>Commonly-used tasks</h3>
+
+
+	<p>You&#8217;ll mostly need just the following Capistrano tasks:</p>
 
 
 	<ul>
 	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:ami_ids</code>
-- Shows the <span class="caps">AMI</span> id&#8217;s of the images that match the current version of the gem.</li>
+Shows the <span class="caps">AMI</span> id&#8217;s of the images that match the current version of the gem.</li>
 	</ul>
 
 
 	<ul>
 	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:setup</code>
-- This is a convenience task to get a new instance completely set up in one
-step, everything except deploying the app.</li>
+This task configures a newly-launched instance. This is the first thing you should do after
+starting a new instance. It can be run more than once without ill effect. After running 
+&#8220;cap ec2onrails:setup&#8221; the next thing to do is run &#8220;cap deploy:cold&#8221;</li>
 	</ul>
 
 
 	<ul>
-	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:restore_db_and_deploy</code>
-- Another convenience task to recreate the db, restore data to it from an s3
-bucket and deploy the app, useful to set up a staging server.</li>
+	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles</code>
+Customizes each instance for it&#8217;s role(s) (as defined in your Capistrano deploy.rb file).
+Run this after starting or stopping instances.
+For now this just makes sure that only the appropriate services (Apache, Mongrel, and/or MySQL)
+are running. Eventually this will customize settings for the running services also. Note that
+an instance can have more than one role. If there&#8217;s only one instance it will have all roles.</li>
 	</ul>
 
 
-	<p>To get a full list of the Capistrano tasks at any time type <code>cap -T</code> from with your rails app root.</p>
-
+	<p>Note that due to the way that Capistrano works all tasks are run
+against all hosts that are currently defined in the deploy.rb file.
+So if you start a new instance then add it to your deploy.rb you will need to run 
+&#8220;cap ec2onrails:setup&#8221; again which will be run on all existing instances.</p>
 
-	<h2>Saving your own customized version of the image.</h2>
 
+	<h3>Database management tasks</h3>
 
-I&#8217;m trying to make the image configurable enough that you won&#8217;t need to do this, but 
-if you want to save a customized version of the image, there is a script to do it: 
-<code>/usr/local/ec2onrails/bin/rebundle.sh</code>. It takes a long time and there 
-are long periods with no output so you might want to hit a key once in a while 
-(or set &#8220;ServerAliveInterval 60&#8221; in your ssh_config file) to avoid being disconnected 
-while it&#8217;s running.
 
-	<p>It expects a directory, /mnt/aws-config, that contains a config file and your <span class="caps">AWS</span> 
-access identifiers. The contents of the directory are the following three files:</p>
+	<ul>
+	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:archive</code>
+Archive the MySQL database to the bucket specified in your deploy.rb. This is for archiving a snapshot of your
+database into any S3 bucket. For example, you might want to do this before deploying.</li>
+	</ul>
 
 
 	<ul>
-	<li>cert-XXXX.pem and pk-XXXX.pem. These are the X.509 certificate and private key files from your Amazon access key identifiers.</li>
-		<li>A file named config. It&#8217;s contents should look like the following:</li>
+	<li><code>cap ec2onrails:db:restore</code>
+Restore the MySQL database from the bucket specified in your deploy.rb
+For example, I use this to restore the current production data (from my actual production backup
+bucket) onto a staging server that has the current production version of my
+app. I then deploy the new version which tests migrations exactly as they&#8217;ll
+run on the production server.</li>
 	</ul>
 
 
-<pre>
-AWS_ACCOUNT_ID=1234-1234-1234
-KEY_FILE_NAME=pk-XXXX.pem
-CERT_FILE_NAME=cert-XXXX.pem
-AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=ABC0123
-AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=abc0123abc0123abc0123
-BUCKET_BASE_NAME=a-string-identifier
-</pre>
+	<p>To get a full list of the Capistrano tasks at any time type <code>cap -T</code> from with your rails app root.</p>
+
 
 	<h2>Building the image</h2>
 
 
 	<p>Building the image is not required, most people will simply use the prebuilt public
-image, but there is also a Rake build script that builds the image, and optionally bundles 
-and uploads it to S3. 
-It should run on any Linux system, including one of the stock Fedora-based Amazon public <span class="caps">AMI</span>&#8217;s 
-(it is tested on <a href="http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=994&#38;categoryID=101">Amazon&#8217;s <span class="caps">FC6</span> x86_64 image</a>).</p>
+image, but there is also a build script that builds the image. It&#8217;s meant to be called by
+<a href="http://alestic.com/">Eric Hammond&#8217;s <span class="caps">EC2</span> Ubuntu script</a>.</p>
 
 
 	<h2>Mailing lists</h2>
@@ -296,7 +285,7 @@ It should run on any Linux system, including one of the stock Fedora-based Amazo
 
 	<p>There are two Google groups, one for 
 <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/ec2-on-rails-announce">announcements</a>
-and one for 
+(usually just new release announcements) and one for 
 <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/ec2-on-rails-discuss">discussion</a>.</p>
 
 
@@ -338,7 +327,7 @@ or <a href="http://pauldowman.com/contact/">emailed directly to me</a> .</p>
 	<p>If you find <span class="caps">EC2</span> on Rails useful please <a href="http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/10131-paul-dowman">recommend Paul Dowman</a>
 at Working With Rails.</p>
     <p class="coda">
-      <a href="http://pauldowman.com/contact/">Paul Dowman</a>, 19th May 2008<br>
+      <a href="http://pauldowman.com/contact/">Paul Dowman</a>, 30th June 2008<br>
       Theme extended from <a href="http://rb2js.rubyforge.org/">Paul Battley</a>
     </p>
 </div>

data/website/index.txt

@@ -8,40 +8,51 @@ EC2 on Rails is an Ubuntu Linux server image for
 that's ready to run a standard Ruby on Rails application with little or no customization. 
 It's a Ruby on Rails "virtual appliance":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance.
 
-If you have an EC2 account and a public keypair you're five minutes away from deploying
+If you have an EC2 account and can start EC2 instances you're five minutes away from deploying
 your Rails app.
 
-_Deploying a simple rails app is simple, and complex customization (if required) is possible._
+EC2 on Rails is "opinionated software":http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch04_Make_Opinionated_Software.php:
+the opinion is that for many rails apps the server setup can be generalized
+and shared the same way as the web application framework itself. For many people (Twitter, this isn't for you) 
+the server image can be treated the same way as other shared libraries. And if the day comes when your needs are
+unique enough that EC2 on Rails can't be configured to work for you then you can bundle your own image from it
+or fork the build source and customize it. 
+
+But until then, why spend your time configuring servers?
 
 Features of the EC2 image:
 
 * Ready to deploy a Rails app with little or no configuration of the server required
-* Automatic backup of MySQL database to S3 (full backup nightly + incremental backup using binary logs every 10 minutes)
+* Automatic backup of MySQL database to S3 (full backup nightly + incremental backup using binary logs every 5 minutes)
 * Capistrano tasks to customize the server image, archive and restore the database to/from S3, and more (available as a rubygem)
 * Mongrel_cluster behind Apache 2.2, configured according to 
   "Coda Hale's excellent guide":http://blog.codahale.com/2006/06/19/time-for-a-grown-up-server-rails-mongrel-apache-capistrano-and-you/
-* Ruby on Rails 2.0.2 and 1.2.6
+* Ruby on Rails 2.1.0, 2.0.2 and 1.2.6
 * Ruby 1.8.6
 * MySQL 5
 * "memcached":http://www.danga.com/memcached/
-* "monit":http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/ system monitoring
-* Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy" base image built using "Eric Hammond's EC2 Ubuntu script":http://alestic.com/
+* "monit":http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/ configured to monitor apache, mongrel, mysql, memcached, drive space and system load
+* Ubuntu 8.04 LTS "Hardy" base image built using "Eric Hammond's EC2 Ubuntu script":http://alestic.com/
 * SSL support
 * Amazon AMI tools installed
-* A script to rebundle a customized version of the image in one step if required
 * MySQL, Apache, and syslog configured to use /mnt for data and logging so you don't fill up EC2's small root filesystem
 * Automatically archives Rails and Apache logs to S3 nightly.
 * 32-bit and 64-bit images available (supports all instance types, small to extra large).
 * Created using a build file, full source is "available":http://rubyforge.org/scm/?group_id=4552 (the EC2 on Rails script is run from "Eric Hammond's EC2 Ubuntu script":http://alestic.com/)
-* Supports multiple instances
+* Can be used as a clustered Rails app running on multiple instances
 * Automatically runs hourly, daily, weekly and monthly scripts if they exist in Rails application's script directory
-* Local SMTP server (postfix)
+* Local "Postfix":http://www.postfix.org/ SMTP mail server (only available from within the instance, not listening on external network interfaces)
 
 
 h2. Using the image
 
 This documentation will be improved soon, for now hopefully this covers the basics. 
-For the AMI id's of the current images see the "change log":http://ec2onrails.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/gem/History.txt.
+
+The current AMI id's are:
+* ami-c9bc58a0 (32-bit)
+* ami-cbbc58a2 (64-bit)
+
+_I will keep these images for as long as possible, they will not be deleted for at least a few years._
 
 
 h4. 1. Install the gem
@@ -57,24 +68,23 @@ and
 "s3.yml":http://ec2onrails.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/documentation/examples/s3.yml
 in the config folder.
 
-Be sure to customize those files and read the comments.
+_Be sure to customize those files and read the comments._
 
-Also, if you're using a separate instance for the database, use the hostname "db_primary"
-in your database.yml file. After running "cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles" it will resolve
+Also, use the hostname "db_primary" in your database.yml file. After running "cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles" it will resolve
 to the instance defined in your Capistrano "db" role.
 
 h4. 4. Start up one or more instances of the image.
 
 There is nothing EC2 on Rails-specific here yet (though soon there will be a Capistrano task to do this for you), 
 if you've started EC2 instances before you can skip this section. Otherwise, I'm not going to lie, this part is complicated
-the first time.
+and will take a lot more than 5 minutes the first time.
 
 Read the 
 "running an instance section":http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-08-29/GettingStartedGuide/running-an-instance.html
 in Amazon's getting started guide.
 
-For the AMI id's of the current images see the "change log":http://ec2onrails.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/gem/History.txt
-or do <code>cap ec2onrails:ami_ids</code> from within the app that you configured in the previous step.
+For the AMI id's of the current images do <code>cap ec2onrails:ami_ids</code> from within the app that you 
+configured in the previous step (they're also listed earlier on this page).
 
 _NOTE: Only use the images that match the current version of the gem._
 
@@ -91,8 +101,9 @@ that the app runs as, does not have sudo ability). The Capistrano tasks automati
 use the app user to deploy the app, and the admin user for server admin tasks 
 that require sudo.
 
-Double-check "your firewall settings":http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-08-29/GettingStartedGuide/running-an-instance.html. 
-Be sure that you haven't allowed public access to any ports other than TCP 22 and TCP 80.
+IMPORTANT: Double-check "your firewall settings":http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-08-29/GettingStartedGuide/running-an-instance.html. 
+Be sure that you haven't allowed public access to any ports other than TCP 22 and TCP 80
+(and possibly TCP 443 if you're going to enable HTTPS).
 If you're using multiple instances, be sure to allow them network access to each other.
 
 
@@ -111,7 +122,8 @@ Note, this will only work if you have an external ssh command in the path, it wo
 
 h4. 6. Deploy the app with Capistrano
 
-Now that the gem is installed, your deploy.rb is configured and you can start and stop EC2 instances, this is the only thing you'll need to do from now on.
+Now that the gem is installed, your deploy.rb is configured and you can start and stop EC2 instances, 
+this is the only thing you'll need to do from now on.
 
 <pre>
 cap ec2onrails:setup
@@ -124,94 +136,66 @@ create your database.
 
 That's it, your app is now running on EC2!!
 
+
 h2. Capistrano tasks
 
-I'll post full documentation for the Capistrano tasks soon, in the meantime here's a brief summary:
-
-Server config tasks. These run as the admin user. You can specify lists of
-gems and Ubuntu packages to be installed. The deploy_files task uploads
-files to the server (they will be owned by root). It's intended mainly for
-customized config files for new packages installed via the install_packages
-task.
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:deploy_files</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:set_timezone</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:upgrade_gems</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:upgrade_packages</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:install_gems</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:install_packages</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:upgrade_and_install_all</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:restart_services</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles</code>
-- Customizes each instance for it's role(s) (as defined in your Capistrano deploy.rb file).
-For now this just makes sure that only the appropriate services (Apache, Mongrel, and/or MySQL)
-are running. Eventually this will customize settings for the running services also. Note that
-an instance can have more than one role. If there's only one instance it will have all roles.
+"Capistrano":http://capify.org is the most commonly used Rails deployment tool. It comes with many standard "tasks",
+and the EC2 on Rails gem includes Capistrano tasks specifically for configuring the server instance.
 
-Database management tasks: archive and restore can operate on any specified S3 bucket. 
-For example, I use this to restore the current production data (from my actual production backup
-bucket) onto a staging server that has the current production version of my
-app. I then deploy the new version which tests migrations exactly as they'll
-run on the production server.
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:archive</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:restore</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:create</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:drop</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:recreate</code>
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:set_root_password</code>
+Capistrano is run from the command-line using the "cap" command, with a task name given as an argument.
 
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:ami_ids</code>
-- Shows the AMI id's of the images that match the current version of the gem.
+h3. Commonly-used tasks
 
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:setup</code>
-- This is a convenience task to get a new instance completely set up in one
-step, everything except deploying the app.
+You'll mostly need just the following Capistrano tasks:
 
-* <code>cap ec2onrails:restore_db_and_deploy</code>
-- Another convenience task to recreate the db, restore data to it from an s3
-bucket and deploy the app, useful to set up a staging server.
+* <code>cap ec2onrails:ami_ids</code>
+Shows the AMI id's of the images that match the current version of the gem.
 
-To get a full list of the Capistrano tasks at any time type <code>cap -T</code> from with your rails app root.
+* <code>cap ec2onrails:setup</code>
+This task configures a newly-launched instance. This is the first thing you should do after
+starting a new instance. It can be run more than once without ill effect. After running 
+"cap ec2onrails:setup" the next thing to do is run "cap deploy:cold"
 
+* <code>cap ec2onrails:server:set_roles</code>
+Customizes each instance for it's role(s) (as defined in your Capistrano deploy.rb file).
+Run this after starting or stopping instances.
+For now this just makes sure that only the appropriate services (Apache, Mongrel, and/or MySQL)
+are running. Eventually this will customize settings for the running services also. Note that
+an instance can have more than one role. If there's only one instance it will have all roles.
 
-h2. Saving your own customized version of the image.
+Note that due to the way that Capistrano works all tasks are run
+against all hosts that are currently defined in the deploy.rb file.
+So if you start a new instance then add it to your deploy.rb you will need to run 
+"cap ec2onrails:setup" again which will be run on all existing instances.
 
-I'm trying to make the image configurable enough that you won't need to do this, but 
-if you want to save a customized version of the image, there is a script to do it: 
-<code>/usr/local/ec2onrails/bin/rebundle.sh</code>. It takes a long time and there 
-are long periods with no output so you might want to hit a key once in a while 
-(or set "ServerAliveInterval 60" in your ssh_config file) to avoid being disconnected 
-while it's running.
 
-It expects a directory, /mnt/aws-config, that contains a config file and your AWS 
-access identifiers. The contents of the directory are the following three files:
+h3. Database management tasks
 
-* cert-XXXX.pem and pk-XXXX.pem. These are the X.509 certificate and private key files from your Amazon access key identifiers.
-* A file named config. It's contents should look like the following:
+* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:archive</code>
+Archive the MySQL database to the bucket specified in your deploy.rb. This is for archiving a snapshot of your
+database into any S3 bucket. For example, you might want to do this before deploying.
 
-<pre>
-AWS_ACCOUNT_ID=1234-1234-1234
-KEY_FILE_NAME=pk-XXXX.pem
-CERT_FILE_NAME=cert-XXXX.pem
-AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=ABC0123
-AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=abc0123abc0123abc0123
-BUCKET_BASE_NAME=a-string-identifier
-</pre>
+* <code>cap ec2onrails:db:restore</code>
+Restore the MySQL database from the bucket specified in your deploy.rb
+For example, I use this to restore the current production data (from my actual production backup
+bucket) onto a staging server that has the current production version of my
+app. I then deploy the new version which tests migrations exactly as they'll
+run on the production server.
 
+To get a full list of the Capistrano tasks at any time type <code>cap -T</code> from with your rails app root.
 
 h2. Building the image
 
 Building the image is not required, most people will simply use the prebuilt public
-image, but there is also a Rake build script that builds the image, and optionally bundles 
-and uploads it to S3. 
-It should run on any Linux system, including one of the stock Fedora-based Amazon public AMI's 
-(it is tested on "Amazon's FC6 x86_64 image":http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=994&categoryID=101).
+image, but there is also a build script that builds the image. It's meant to be called by
+"Eric Hammond's EC2 Ubuntu script":http://alestic.com/.
 
 
 h2. Mailing lists
 
 There are two Google groups, one for 
 "announcements":http://groups.google.com/group/ec2-on-rails-announce
-and one for 
+(usually just new release announcements) and one for 
 "discussion":http://groups.google.com/group/ec2-on-rails-discuss.
 
 

metadata

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 --- !ruby/object:Gem::Specification 
 name: ec2onrails
 version: !ruby/object:Gem::Version 
-  version: 0.9.8.1
+  version: 0.9.9
 platform: ruby
 authors: 
 - Paul Dowman
@@ -9,20 +9,22 @@ autorequire:
 bindir: bin
 cert_chain: []
 
-date: 2008-05-20 00:00:00 -04:00
+date: 2008-07-01 00:00:00 -04:00
 default_executable: 
 dependencies: 
 - !ruby/object:Gem::Dependency 
   name: capistrano
+  type: :runtime
   version_requirement: 
   version_requirements: !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement 
     requirements: 
-    - - ">="
+    - - "="
       - !ruby/object:Gem::Version 
-        version: 2.3.0
+        version: 2.4.3
     version: 
 - !ruby/object:Gem::Dependency 
   name: archive-tar-minitar
+  type: :runtime
   version_requirement: 
   version_requirements: !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement 
     requirements: 
@@ -32,6 +34,7 @@ dependencies:
     version: 
 - !ruby/object:Gem::Dependency 
   name: optiflag
+  type: :runtime
   version_requirement: 
   version_requirements: !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement 
     requirements: 
@@ -101,7 +104,7 @@ required_rubygems_version: !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement
 requirements: []
 
 rubyforge_project: ec2onrails
-rubygems_version: 1.1.0
+rubygems_version: 1.2.0
 signing_key: 
 specification_version: 2
 summary: Client-side libraries (Capistrano tasks) for managing and deploying to EC2 on Rails servers.