= Capistrano

Capistrano is a utility and framework for executing commands in parallel on multiple remote machines, via SSH. It uses a simple DSL (borrowed in part from Rake, http://rake.rubyforge.org/) that allows you to define _tasks_, which may be applied to machines in certain roles. It also supports tunneling connections via some gateway machine to allow operations to be performed behind VPN's and firewalls.

Capistrano was originally designed to simplify and automate deployment of web applications to distributed environments, and originally came bundled with a set of tasks designed for deploying Rails applications. The deployment tasks are now (as of Capistrano 2.0) opt-in and require clients to explicitly put
"load 'deploy'" in their recipes.

As of 2.5.6 the default deploy.rb nolonger makes assumptions about your choice of platform. Deploys are versioned, but the expectation that you are using Mongrel with the Rails framework has expired.

Since 2.5.6 you must include one, or more of the following if you require the Rails code, and you may include only the ones you require.

* capistrano-rails
  * capistrano-rails/mongrel
  * capistrano-rails/mod_rails
  * capistrano-rails/nginx

* capistrano-alt/apache

Each of the capistrano-rails libraries includes a start, stop and restart task appropriate for each environment.

Where applicable they also include web:disable and web:enable tasks.

The capistrano-atl/apache file contains generic apache restart methods, and will attempt to call `sudo apachectl {{re,}start,stop}`. This can be configured through the :apachectl variable.

== DEPENDENCIES

* Net::SSH v2 (http://net-ssh.rubyforge.org)
* Net::SFTP v2 (http://net-ssh.rubyforge.org)
* Net::SCP v1 (http://net-ssh.rubyforge.org)
* Net::SSH::Gateway v1 (http://net-ssh.rubyforge.org)
* HighLine (http://highline.rubyforge.org)

If you want to run the tests, you'll also need to have the following dependencies installed:

* Echoe (for the Rakefile)
* Mocha (http://mocha.rubyforge.org)

== ASSUMPTIONS

Capistrano is "opinionated software", which means it has very firm ideas about how things ought to be done, and tries to force those ideas on you. Some of the assumptions behind these opinions are:

* You are using SSH to access the remote servers.
* You either have the same password to all target machines, or you have public keys in place to allow passwordless access to them.

Do not expect these assumptions to change.

== USAGE

In general, you'll use Capistrano as follows:

* Create a recipe file ("capfile" or "Capfile").
* Use the +cap+ script to execute your recipe.

Use the +cap+ script as follows:

    cap sometask

By default, the script will look for a file called one of +capfile+ or +Capfile+. The +someaction+ text indicates which task to execute. You can do "cap -h" to see all the available options and "cap -T" to see all the available tasks.

== LICENSE:

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2005-2008 Jamis Buck <jamis@37signals.com>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.