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. Allows also 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

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

Capistrano::Rsync clones your repository to tmp/cache on your local machine, checks out the branch set in the branch variable (master by default) and then Rsyncs that directory to your servers.

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
branch	`master`	The Git branch to checkout.
repo_url	`.`	The path or URL to a Git repository to clone from.
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 [email protected] or create an issue online.