Storing user data (theme files) between deploys

Question

I have deployed a new rails app using a Capistrano script. However i have noticed that all user data i upload to this application (theme files) are deleted between each time i update the application with the Capistrano script.

This is of course because the script overwrites the whole app with the data from the repo.

However how should i store data (for example theme files) in my rails application to avoid this problem? Should i store it outside the application folder or what is the normal thing to do here? Is there a trick to avoid this problem?

Any help is appreciated :)

Answer 1

This i solved by adding a this to my deploy scirpt (under namespace :deploy do):

task :link_dependencies, :roles => :app do
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/public/assets/themes/ #{current_path}/public/assets/themes"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/public/uploads/themes/ #{current_path}/public/uploads/themes"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/public/uploads/photo/ #{current_path}/public/uploads/photo"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/themes/ #{current_path}/themes"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/config/aws_environment_variables.rb #{current_path}/config/aws_environment_variables.rb"
  end

Above that i added after :deploy, 'deploy:link_dependencies (which runs the code above after the updated application is copied from git into the current directory.

The code sets up symlinks between a shared directory and the updated application so that the updated application can get to the shared information and writes to the folder that lies outside the current directory (so it is not overwritten by the next redeploy)

Edit: Complete deploy file:

require "rvm/capistrano"                  # Load RVM's capistrano plugin.
set :rvm_ruby_string, '2.1.1'        # Or whatever env you want it to run in.
set :rvm_type, :user

# Bundler support
require 'bundler/capistrano'

# Stages
require 'capistrano/ext/multistage'
set :stages, %w(production)
set :default_stage, 'production'

set :application, "imagesite"
set :scm, :git
set :repository,  "https://github.com/your_username/your_repo.git"

set :deploy_to, "/home/rails/apps/#{application}"
set :deploy_via, :remote_cache
set :copy_exclude, [ '.git' ]

set :user, "your_linux_server_username"

# if you want to clean up old releases on each deploy uncomment this:
set :keep_releases, 10
after "deploy:restart", "deploy:cleanup"
after :deploy, 'deploy:link_dependencies'

# if you're still using the script/reaper helper you will need
# these http://github.com/rails/irs_process_scripts

# If you are using Passenger mod_rails uncomment this:
namespace :deploy do
  task :symlink_shared do
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/config/database.yml #{release_path}/config/database.yml"
  end

  desc <<-DESC
    Creates symbolic links to configuration files and other dependencies
    after deployment.
  DESC
  task :link_dependencies, :roles => :app do
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/public/assets/themes/ #{current_path}/public/assets/themes"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/public/uploads/themes/ #{current_path}/public/uploads/themes"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/public/uploads/photo/ #{current_path}/public/uploads/photo"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/themes/ #{current_path}/themes"
    run "ln -nfs #{shared_path}/config/aws_environment_variables.rb #{current_path}/config/aws_environment_variables.rb"
  end

  task :start do ; end
  task :stop do ; end
  task :restart, :roles => :app, :except => { :no_release => true } do
    run "#{try_sudo} touch #{File.join(current_path,'tmp','restart.txt')}"
  end
end

before 'bundle:install', 'deploy:symlink_shared'