Capistrano task to open a rails console on a remote server. Require this file in your deploy.rb and run "cap rails:console"

rails.rb

# encoding: UTF-8

Capistrano::Configuration.instance(:must_exist).load do
  namespace :rails do
    desc "Open the rails console on one of the remote servers"
    task :console, :roles => :app do
      hostname = find_servers_for_task(current_task).first
      exec "ssh -l #{user} #{hostname} -t 'source ~/.profile && #{current_path}/script/rails c #{rails_env}'"
    end
  end
end

Very useful, thanks a lot! Much better to just go with good old system commands than trying to reimplement interactive ssh shells like many other snippets for cap rails console do.

In my situation, I have to switch to the app user after connecting via SSH, so my slightly modified code looks like this:

namespace :rails do
  desc "Remote console"
  task :console, :roles => :app do
    run_interactively "bundle exec rails console #{rails_env}"
  end

  desc "Remote dbconsole"
  task :dbconsole, :roles => :app do
    run_interactively "bundle exec rails dbconsole #{rails_env}"
  end
end

def run_interactively(command, server=nil)
  server ||= find_servers_for_task(current_task).first
  exec %Q(ssh #{server.host} -t 'sudo su - #{application} -c "cd #{current_path} && #{command}"')
end

This makes some assumptions which do apply in my config setup, being that the server host (I prefer to write that out explicitly as server.host, even though server.to_s does the same in capistrano) is set up in ~/.ssh/config, that the user name equals the app name, rails_env cap config is set etc, but it works like a charm.

Awesome, thank you! I modified it very slightly to accomodate our non-standard SSH port.

namespace :rails do
  desc "Open the rails console on one of the remote servers"
  task :console, :roles => :app do
    hostname = find_servers_for_task(current_task).first
    port = exists?(:port) ? fetch(:port) : 22
    exec "ssh -l #{user} #{hostname} -p #{port} -t 'source ~/.profile && #{current_path}/script/rails c #{rails_env}'"
  end
end

Since Capistrano 3 is now out, someone else might want the updated version of this code. You can find it here.

For capistrano 2 you can also use https://github.com/subsis/capistrano-cook - it has a lot of nice recipes included

Had to do this for my Rails 4 app on RVM to find the ruby binary:

ssh myserver -t 'source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm"; cd ~/apps/myapp.com/current; RAILS_ENV=production bin/rails console'

Had to change it a bit (rails 3.2 + rvm)

namespace :rails do
  desc "Open the rails console on one of the remote servers"
  task :console, :roles => :app do
    hostname = find_servers_for_task(current_task).first
    exec "ssh -l #{user} #{hostname} -t 'source \"$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm\" && cd #{current_path}; bundle exec rails console #{rails_env}'"
  end

  desc "Open the rails dbconsole on one of the remote servers"
  task :dbconsole, :roles => :app do
    hostname = find_servers_for_task(current_task).first
    exec "ssh -l #{user} #{hostname} -t 'source \"$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm\" && cd #{current_path}; bundle exec rails dbconsole #{rails_env}'"
  end

  # Short aliases
  task :c, :roles => :app do
    console
  end

  task :dbc, :roles => :app do
    dbconsole
  end
end

Similar to @colszowka, I have to switch to the app user after connecting via SSH

Capistrano::Configuration.instance(:must_exist).load do
  namespace :rails do
    desc "Open the rails console on one of the remote servers"
    task :console, :roles => :app do
      server ||= find_servers_for_task(current_task).first
      exec %Q[ssh #{server.host} -t 'sudo -u #{user} -- sh -c "source ~/.profile > /dev/null; cd #{release_path}; bin/rails console"']
    end
  end
end

The idea is to run the command as a different user without typing in a password when policy prohibits sudo su <user> -c

Adapted for Capistrano 3

namespace :rails do
  desc "Open the rails console on one of the remote servers"
  task :console do |current_task|
    on roles(:app) do |server|
      exec %Q[ssh -l #{server.user} #{server.hostname} -p #{server.port || 22} -t 'source ~/.bashrc > /dev/null; cd #{release_path}; bin/rails console']
    end
  end
end