eXpand yOur cReativity by Bhushan G Ahire

17Feb/100

Setup Capistrano to deploy Rails application on Amazon EC2 with Git

1: Create a new Rails app - we'll call is 'deploytest'

$ rails deploytest
$ cd deploytest

2: Create a local Git repository for it

$ git init
$ git add *
$ git commit -a -m 'initial commit'
$ git status

3: Create a couple of Capistrano files

$ capify .

4: Edit config/deploy.rb

# The name of your app
set :application, "deploytest"
# The directory on the EC2 node that will be deployed to
set :deploy_to, "/var/www/apps/#{application}"
# The type of Source Code Management system you are using
set :scm, :git
# The location of the LOCAL repository relative to the current app
set :repository,  "."
# The way in which files will be transferred from repository to remote host
# If you were using a hosted github repository this would be slightly different
set :deploy_via, :copy

# The address of the remote host on EC2 (the Public DNS address)
set :location, "ec2-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com"
# setup some Capistrano roles
role :app, location
role :web, location
role :db,  location, :primary => true

# Set up SSH so it can connect to the EC2 node - assumes your SSH key is in ~/.ssh/id_rsa
set :user, "root"
ssh_options[:keys] = [File.join(ENV["HOME"], ".ssh", "id_rsa")]

The only account on a default EC2 instance is root. You probably want to create a second user that is responsible for your application.

5: Copy your SSH public key to your EC2 node

$ scp -i ~/my-ec2-keypair ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@ec2-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:/root/.ssh/authorized_keys2

NOTE the filename authorized_keys2 - not authorized_keys!!

6: Setup the EC2 node for Capistrano deployment.
From your LOCAL machine, not the EC2 node:

$ cap deploy:setup

7: Finally, deploy your application

$ cap deploy

You will see lots of output and with this dummy application some of those will report errors/warnings. Don't worry about that for now.

8: Check that the Deployment was successful
Connect to the EC2 node with SSH the regular way, cd to the app directory and check that everything is there. If that is all working then you are ready to deploy a real application and add custom tasks for managing the database, restarting the server etc.

Bear in mind that Capistrano add new 'releases' of your software in separate directories and symlinks the 'current' directory to the latest. So the root of your deployed application is the 'current' subdirectory.

Hope this will help you setting up your ec2 instance with capistrano.

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15Feb/101

Installing PostgreSQL on Snow Leopard 10.6

Installing PostgreSQL 8.3

First, you’ll need to install Xcode if you haven’t already. This is available on the Snow Leopard DVD in the Optional Installs directory.

Second, if you aren’t already using it, download Mac Ports for Snow Leopard and install it. Mac Ports has come a long way in the last few years and will make your life much easier.

Once those are installed, run the following command:
sudo port install postgresql83 postgresql83-server

Setup Your First Database

At the very end of the install it tells you how to setup your first database:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb
sudo chown postgres:postgres /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb
sudo su postgres -c '/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/initdb -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb'

You’ll also want to setup Postgres to auto-run as a server on start up.

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.postgresql83-server.plist

If you want to start it right now, you can either reboot or do the following:

sudo su postgres -c '/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/postgres -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb'

Make psql Available from the Command Line

The executable files for PostgreSQL get shoved into a non-standard place (just like MySQL), so you’ll need to edit the default profile.

sudo vi /etc/profile

You can also do this using sudo mate /etc/profile if you aren’t comfortable in VI.

The PATH= line needs to be changed to include the PostgreSQL bin directory.

Mine was PATH="/opt/local/bin:$PATH" and is now:

PATH="/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin:$PATH"

If you open a new terminal window you can now type psql and it will find it.

Create a New User and Database

By default, PostgreSQL creates a postgres user for you. However, it’s not good practice to use the default and it’s a pain in the ass. Let’s just create a new database user to make it easier.

createuser --superuser macusername -U postgres

You need to change macusername to your mac username. This will make your life ALOT easier. Trust me here.

Next, create your database:

createdb my_database

Installing the PostgreSQL Ruby Gem

Unlike the MySQL driver, we don’t need to pass the ARCHFLAGS variable as 64 bit. PostgreSQL comes with both 32 and 64-bit versions. Yeah!

sudo gem install postgres-pr

Per Tom’s comment below, we should be using the native driver for better performance.

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install pg

Configuring your Rails Application

Inside your Ruby on Rails application, open up config/database.yml and change your development adapter to be similar to the following:

development:
adapter: postgresql
database: defaultdb
username: defaultdb

You can change defaultdb to the name you need for your application.

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15Jan/100

Send SMS from Ruby On Rails application using web service, SOAP API

SOAP4R is a Ruby library for accessing Web Services via SOAP. Recently I had a chance to explore SOAP4R. Here's how to get started with it.

Installation

Although Ruby 1.8.x comes with SOAP4R in its standard library, it is an old, buggy version. I highly recommend using the latest gem (1.5.8 as of the this update). It has one dependency, httpclient.

gem install soap4r --include-dependencies

Service

There are many services available to send SMS but I prefer to use,

MailServe-SMS

MailServe-SMS, text messaging service, is everything you need for fast, no-frills, no-fuss text messaging. A quick and easy way to send SMS.

Let’s explore these further.

Method 1: Read the WSDL at run-time

 

require "soap/wsdlDriver"
wsdl = "http://sms.qlc.co.in/smsapi.wsdl"
driver = SOAP::WSDLDriverFactory.new(wsdl).create_rpc_drive

 

A single call to a driver factory reads the WSDL file, and creates a driver class for you to use, complete with the methods defined by the service. What if your service requires authentication? The driver inherits methods from httpclient, so you can specify its options as you would for httpclient:

Once driver is get initialised you need to call SMS sending API i.e. SendSMSRequest.

driver.SendSMSRequest("username", "password", "sender_no", "from_no", "message")

 

Once This will return you response 200 SMS sent successfully on success else if the information submitted was wrong then 500 Information submitted was incomplete.

 

Method 2: Generate classes from WSDL

SOAP4R installs a command-line utility called 'wsdl2ruby' which can generate a client or server.

Coming soon…..

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Bhushan G Ahire



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