SwitchTower is a utility that can execute commands in parallel on multiple servers. It allows you to define tasks, which can include commands that are executed on the servers. You can also define roles for your servers, and then specify that certain tasks apply only to certain roles. It was developed primarily to ease the pain of deploying Rails applications to multiple machines, but can be used for a great deal more than that. SwitchTower 0.10.0 fixes several longstanding issues and adds some nice new functionality. I anticipate one (or at most two) more releases before 1.0. Project: http://rubyforge.org/projects/switchtower Manual: http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/book/17 Installation is simple: gem install --include-dependencies switchtower You can get the whole scoop on what''s new in the change log (http:// rubyforge.org/frs/shownotes.php?release_id=3930) or in the announcement at either http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/articles/ 2006/01/02/switchtower-0-10-0 or http://jamis.jamisbuck.org/articles/ 2006/01/02/switchtower-0-10-0. - Jamis
I have a question that may seem dumb, but I can''t seem to answer it. I understand that the situation I describe is only the "default" setup, and that Switchtower is exceedingly customizable. My question asks "why is this the default?" Situation: Assume I have a version controlled app that I am deploying with Switchtower. Every time I deploy, Switchtower creates a new directory (named based on the date/time of deployment, and redirects the symlink to point to the newest folder. Question: Why does ST create a new folder, instead of simply storing the files in one place and overwriting them each time? In the absence on version control, the ST model makes perfect sense. However, it seems to be that version control makes this model unnecessary. By simply logging each deployment, the advantages of this model (such as diff_since_last_deploy) are easily obtainable through version control. I am certainly open to the idea that I am missing something vital. I''m not saying that the ST model is wrong, I''m saying I don''t understand it. I very much hope to be enlightened. Thank you everyone, I look forward to ..... some enlightenment. Mike
Hello Mike, 2006/1/3, Mike Harris <GENIE@prodigy.net>:> Thank you everyone, I look forward to ..... some enlightenment.I am by no means an expert on SwitchTower (haven''t even deployed once), but I know why it''s doing it this way. If you update the directory from which the application is currently being served, clients (browsers) might get an inconsistent view of the system. Views are live - even in production mode. Since ST creates a new folder everytime, and updates a symlink as the last step of making the current application live, then the change happens atomically. Hope that helps ! -- Fran?ois Beausoleil http://blog.teksol.info/
In addition to providing a consistent view to the users during an update, it also allows for rollback of that update if something goes wrong before the site is switched over to the new code. And it does this across however many production machines you may have. -----Original Message----- From: rails-bounces@lists.rubyonrails.org [mailto:rails-bounces@lists.rubyonrails.org] On Behalf Of Francois Beausoleil Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 12:54 PM To: rails@lists.rubyonrails.org Subject: Re: [Rails] Question About Switchtower Hello Mike, 2006/1/3, Mike Harris <GENIE@prodigy.net>:> Thank you everyone, I look forward to ..... some enlightenment.I am by no means an expert on SwitchTower (haven''t even deployed once), but I know why it''s doing it this way. If you update the directory from which the application is currently being served, clients (browsers) might get an inconsistent view of the system. Views are live - even in production mode. Since ST creates a new folder everytime, and updates a symlink as the last step of making the current application live, then the change happens atomically. Hope that helps ! -- Fran?ois Beausoleil http://blog.teksol.info/