DigitalOcean, Dokku, Rails, PostgreSQL

instructions.md

Instructions

References:

• Dokku Docs
• DigitalOcean Docs

Prepare Dokku server and client

1. Create a new Droplet on DigitalOcean

• Name the Droplet after your Domain (yourdomain.com)
• Choose Applications -> Dokku
• Create Droplet

2. Access Dokku setup using the Server IP in the Browser

• ssh key is already filled in
• Configure the hostname (yourdomain.com)
• Check "Use virtualhost naming for apps"
• Finish Setup

3. Install PostgreSQL on Dokku Server

• SSH to the server
• cd /var/lib/dokku/plugins
• git clone https://github.com/Kloadut/dokku-pg-plugin.git postgresql
• dokku plugins-install

4. Install Dokku client on dev machine

• git clone git@github.com:progrium/dokku.git ~/.dokku
• Add to .zshrv alias dokku='$HOME/.dokku/contrib/dokku_client.sh'
• Add the following to ~/.ssh/config:

Host <yourdomain.com>
RequestTTY yes

Optional: Add swap

If you use a small instance type, add some swap to your server see docs

1. (Optional) Add swap

• System has swap? sudo swapon -s or free -m
• Check disk space df -h
• sudo fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
• Check if correct ls -lh /swapfile
• Secure swap file sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
• Verify swap file ls -lh /swapfile
• Set up swap sudo mkswap /swapfile
• Enable swap sudo swapon /swapfile
• System has swap? sudo swapon -s or free -m

2. (Optional) Make swap permanent

• sudo vim /etc/fstab
• At bottom, add /swapfile none swap sw 0 0

3. (Optional) Tweak swap settings

• Check swapiness cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
• For a Desktop, a swappiness setting of 60 is not a bad value. For a VPS system, we'd probably want to move it closer to 0
• Set swapiness temp: sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10
• Set swapiness perm: sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf and add vm.swappiness=10
• Check vfs_cache_pressure: cat /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure == 100
• Set cache temp: sudo sysctl vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
• Set cache perm: sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf and add vm.vfs_cache_pressure = 50

Rails App

1. Create a new rails app and cd into the directory
2. Initialize git and do first commit git init && git add . && git commit -am 'First commit'
3. Add remote git remote add dokku dokku@yourdomain.com:<app_name>
4. dokku postgresql:create <app_name> (must be the app name)
5. dokku postgresql:link <app_name> <app_name>
6. Push it git push dokku master
7. dokku run rake db:migrate
8. dokku url

Problems

rails-assets.org not working

Create a .env file and add at least export BUILDPACK_URL=https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-ruby