We have a few production servers at work, and we have a central bitbucket repository to store our core code. Once we make a change on our testing server (!), we used to have to commit, push changes to bitbucket, and then ssh into each server, then pull changes, and update each repository. A pain in the backside! Enter Capistrano. A ruby ssh automation tool. In a few simple steps you can create a recipe file that will let you do this all with one command.

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By default, Merb will not ask DataMapper to create the tables in your testing database when you run your specs. In order to do this, you need to add the following line to your spec/spec_helper.rb file:

DataMapper::Base.auto_migrate!

It’s finally here, my updated how-to on how to get Ubuntu Dapper up and running as a home web server. Perfect for hosting those small web sites and blogs. My original Ubuntu 5.10 web server how-to is still available.

This updated version is very similar to the 5.10 how-to, however, there are a few changes required. The following changes have been made:

• Setting up the Multiverse and Universe repositories
• The packages to install Ruby
• Setting a symbolic link for Ruby
• Updating rubygems
• Clearing the rubygems cache

Other than those, the rest of the how-to is the same as the Breezy how-to.

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I reinstalled my home server today (well, I actually started yesterday, but today I finished from scratch again) and wrote down what I did. My aim was to have a web server set up using Apache that I could use to host this blog which uses Ruby on Rails. Also, I wanted to set-up Webmin and Bind so I could manage the DNS stuff from here.

So, here we go! If you find any errors, or have any problems, leave a comment and I’ll try and help.

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