Capistrano::Nodenv::Install

Capistrano plugin for lightweight nodes management with nodenv.

Works with Capistrano 3 (only).

Install by adding the following to the Gemfile:

gem 'capistrano', '~> 3.2.1'
gem 'capistrano-nodenv', '~> 1.1' # required
gem 'capistrano-nodenv-install', '~> 1.0'

then:

$ bundle install

The following goes to Capfile:

require 'capistrano/nodenv_install'

This plugin heavily relies on capistrano-nodenv config options. So make sure to properly setup capistrano-nodenv and you'll be good.

For example, in config/deploy.rb:

set :nodenv_node, '6.3.0'

Other than that, this plugin does not need any setup.

Run:

$ bundle exec cap production deploy

And watch node being installed.

Installing software packages on servers is called provisioning. Installing and managing nodes falls into that domain, and is best done with a proper tool like chef, puppet, ansible or something else.

Why this plugin then?

• Capistrano is a great tool that makes deployments easy so, when there's a need, installing nodes with it should be easy too
• not everyone knows (or has time to learn) how to use provisioning tools mentioned above
• sometimes installing node manually is just easier than fiddling with your chef cookbooks. Instead of manually, you can do it with this plugin now

Imagine you want to quickly deploy a node 5.0.0 app to a server that already has one or more node 6.0.0 apps. "Oh, let's just quickly update our cookbooks" - yea right! I'd rather manually ssh to the server directly and run nodenv install 5.0.0. But I don't want to manually ssh to the server too. In that case I just can install capistrano-nodenv-install and forget about it altogether.

It only does the bare minimum that's required for Capistrano to work. That's why it's a plugin for lightweight node management.

It makes sure that:

• nodenv and node build are installed (installs them using git)
• node specified with :nodenv_node option is installed

It does not:

• manage npm packages

• does not install node dependency packages
  (git-core build-essential libreadline6-dev etc ...). You should probably install/provision those some other way.

• does not manage nodenv plugins
  It only installs node build for the purpose of installing node.

• does not setup nodenv for direct use on the server via the command line
  Example: sshing to the server and manually running node commands is not supported.

Check out capistrano-plugins github org.

The authors of Capistrano::Rbenv::Install This would not have been possible without your original work!

MIT