Capistrano::Rsync for Capistrano v3

Deploy with Rsync to your server from any local (or remote) repository when using Capistrano. Saves you from having to install Git on your production machine and allows you to customize which files you want to deploy. Also allows you to easily precompile things on your local machine before deploying.

Tour

Works with the new Capistrano v3 (source code) versions >= 3.0.0pre14 and < 4.
Suitable for deploying any apps, be it Ruby, Rails, Node.js or others.
Exclude files from being deployed with Rsync's --exclude options.
Precompile files or assets easily before deploying, like JavaScript or CSS.
Caches your previously deployed code to speed up deployments ~1337%.
Currently works only with Git (as does Capistrano v3), so please shout out your interest in other SCMs.

Using Mina instead of Capistrano? I've built Mina::Rsync as well.

Using

Install with:

gem install capistrano-rsync

Require it at the top of your Capfile (or config/deploy.rb):

require "capistrano/rsync"

Set some rsync_options to your liking:

set :rsync_options, %w[--recursive --delete --delete-excluded --exclude .git*]

And after setting regular Capistrano options, deploy as usual!

cap deploy

Implementation

Clones and updates your repository to rsync_stage (defaults to tmp/deploy) on your local machine.
Checks out the branch set in the branch variable (defaults to master).
If rsync_cache set (defaults to shared/deploy), rsyncs to that directory on the server.
If rsync_cache set, copies the content of that directory to a new release directory.
If rsync_cache is nil, rsyncs straight to a new release directory.

After that, Capistrano takes over and runs its usual tasks and symlinking.

Exclude files from being deployed

If you don't want to deploy everything you've committed to your repository, pass some --exclude options to Rsync:

set :rsync_options, %w[
  --recursive --delete --delete-excluded
  --exclude .git*
  --exclude /config/database.yml
  --exclude /test/***
]

Precompile assets before deploy

Capistrano::Rsync runs rsync:stage before rsyncing. Hook to that like this:

task :precompile do
  Dir.chdir fetch(:rsync_stage) do
    system "rake", "assets:precompile"
  end
end

after "rsync:stage", "precompile"

Deploy release without symlinking the current directory

cap rsync:release

Configuration

Set Capistrano variables with set name, value.

Name	Default	Description
repo_url	`.`	The path or URL to a Git repository to clone from.
branch	`master`	The Git branch to checkout.
rsync_stage	`tmp/deploy`	Path where to clone your repository for staging, checkouting and rsyncing. Can be both relative or absolute.
rsync_cache	`shared/deploy`	Path where to cache your repository on the server to avoid rsyncing from scratch each time. Can be both relative or absolute. Set to `nil` if you want to disable the cache.
rsync_options	`[]`	Array of options to pass to `rsync`.

License

Capistrano::Rsync is released under a Lesser GNU Affero General Public License, which in summary means:

You can use this program for no cost.
You can use this program for both personal and commercial reasons.
You do not have to share your own program's code which uses this program.
You have to share modifications (e.g bug-fixes) you've made to this program.

For more convoluted language, see the LICENSE file.

About

Andri Möll made this happen.
Monday Calendar was the reason I needed this.

If you find Capistrano::Rsync needs improving, please don't hesitate to type to me now at andri@dot.ee or create an issue online.

moll / capistrano-rsync

readme