Deploying a private repo in Chef: What am I doing wrong with my deploy key?

Question

I am using chef to deploy a rails/node app. Everything deploys fine when I deploy from a public github repository. I would like to deploy from a private github repository, though, and am having trouble doing so. Here is what I am currently doing

cd ~/.ssh                        # change directory to my .ssh directory
ssh-keygen -f'deploy_key' -N ''  # create a deploy_key key pair without a passphrase
cat deploy_key.pub | pbcopy      # copy the public key into my clipboard

-go to https://github.com/HairyMezican/PrivateRepoName/admin/keys
-click on 'Add another deploy key'
-type 'deploy_key' into 'Title' field
- ⌘V (paste command) into 'Key' field
-click 'Add Key'

tr "\n" "#" < deploy_key | sed 's/#/\\n/g' | pbcopy      #copy the private key into my clipboard, except with all of the newlines replaced with a slash-n
cd ~/chef-repo                                           #change over the the chef repo directory

mate data_bags/apps/my_app.json                          #edit the appropriate data bag in TextMate
--set the following couple of lines before saving
-"repository": "https://HairyMezican@github.com/HairyMezican/PrivateRepoName.git",
-"deploy_key": "⌘V (paste command into here)",

knife data bag from file apps data_bags/apps/my_app.json                        #upload the databag to my chef server
ssh root@12.34.56.789 "mkdir ~/.ssh"                                            #create a ssh directory on my remote server
scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa root@12.34.56.789:.ssh/                                       #copy my private key over to the ssh directory on the remote server
cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub | ssh root@12.34.56.789 'cat - >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys' #add my public key into the authorized keys list on the remote server
knife bootstrap 12.34.56.789 -dubuntu10.04-gems -rrole[myapp]                   #tell my chef server to bootstrap the remote server

Everything goes fine until the bootstrap process tries to deploy from the private repository. and it displays this:

12.34.56.789 [Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:41:42 +0000] INFO: Processing deploy_revision[myapp] action deploy (application::rails line 155)
12.34.56.789 Password:

and then practically freezes up (technically, I can still type, but nothing I type affects the script), until 10 minutes later

12.34.56.789 [Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:51:51 +0000] ERROR: deploy_revision[myapp] (application::rails line 155) has had an error
12.34.56.789 [Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:51:51 +0000] ERROR: deploy_revision[myapp] (/var/chef/cache/cookbooks/application/recipes/rails.rb:155:in `from_file') had an error:
12.34.56.789 deploy_revision[myapp] (application::rails line 155) had an error: command timed out:

It then lists a blank output in stdout and stderr, and a stack trace of it trying to run the command

What am I doing wrong and how can I deploy from a private repository?

Answer 1

If this is a private repo you should be using the SSH path to your git repo which starts with git@github.com too.

git@github.com:HairyMezican/PrivateRepoName.git

Answer 2

You need to create a deploy key on github that will allow you to pull from your private repo without entering a passphrase.

See documentation at: http://help.github.com/deploy-keys/

Answer 3

You are doing it right. Note line 85 of cookbooks/application/recipes/rails.rb: not_if do ::File.exists?("#{app['deploy_to']}/id_deploy"); end

I.e. try manually logging into the instance and removing the (presumably blank) id_deploy file, then re-initializing the process.

^_^