# Capistrano, chmod, and revisions.log

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-chmod-and-revisions-log/63921>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 20, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-chmod-and-revisions-log/63921 "2006-06-20T18:40:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jason\_Y](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Jason\_Y](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jason_Y)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-chmod-and-revisions-log/63921/1 "2006-06-20T18:40:17Z")

</div>

background:

One of our developers is just getting started with Capistrano, just  
getting together a rudimentary deploy.rb, copied from one of our  
contract developers who is just getting started a bit too. I’m the  
systems manager and a complete Rails and Ruby newbie (who, by the  
way, cannot thank Zed S. enough for mongrel and Bradley Taylor  
enough for mongrel\_cluster 🙂

I’m using POSIX ACLs on ext3 to let the devs do their thing and make  
sure that apache and mongrel have r, rx, and rwx where they need to  
for their applications without playing a bunch of owner/group games  
for the files. This is working out well, and I can happily tell the  
devs to ignore any and all chmod recommendations littered throughout  
the web references to capistrano, because they are completely  
unnecessary

well, until capistrano itself does a chmod.

Buried in …/gems/capistrano-1.1.0/lib/capistrano/scm/base.rb is this:

```
     def logging_commands(directory = nil)
       log = "#{configuration.deploy_to}/revisions.log"

       "(test -e #{log} || touch #{log} && chmod 666 #{log}) && " +
       "echo `date +\"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S\"` $USER #

```

{configuration.revision} #{directory} \>\> #{log};"  
end

Well, this apparently caused a deployment to fail for my dev (maybe,  
the dev and I were debugging this over IM and there were multiple  
issues, one of which was a mongrel\_rails cluster::restart which  
doesn’t start a stopped mongrel\_rails process). For reasons that I’m  
still not sure about (see debugging comment above), the test -e  
failed on the revisions.log (even though it existed) and because the  
dev wasn’t the owner (but has read/write from the ACL on the file) -  
the chmod failed, failing the logging - and affecting who knows what  
else.

This chmod assumption annoys the heck out of my system admin  
sensibilities. I don’t want/need scripts trying to fix their own  
permissions. Either try the write and fail or succeed. (okay, so  
my dev sensibilities appreciate the attempt, at least until its  
assumption fails).

so…

a) is this the right forum to comment on this?  
b) in the collective opinion, what’s the feeling on this? (if the  
consensus thinks the chmod is great, I’ll get over it)  
c) if (b) == get rid of the chmod, is this worthy for a bug report?  
d) if © where do I file said bug report?

Thanks,  
Jason

–

```auto
Jason Y. -- Systems Engineer, eXtension
  http://about.extension.org/wiki/Jason_Young
______________________________________
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jason\_Y](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Jason\_Y](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jason_Y)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-chmod-and-revisions-log/63921/2 "2006-06-20T19:06:27Z")

</div>

I’ve not worked with ACLs, but I’ve found that  
Capistrano works great if you create a user  
that:

1. Owns the files, and
2. Starts Mongrel

This user needs almost no privileges at all.

–  
– Tom M.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jason\_Y](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Jason\_Y](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jason_Y)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-chmod-and-revisions-log/63921/3 "2006-06-21T22:01:48Z")

</div>

Well,

part of the whole problem here is that this is supposedly a fixed bug:

[http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/3223](http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/3223)

but it’s not in capistrano 1.1.0

when do capistrano fixes make it into the gems?

thanks!  
Jason

On Jun 20, 2006, at 11:11 AM, Jason Y. wrote:

> make sure that apache and mongrel have r, rx, and rwx where they
> 
> multiple issues, one of which was a mongrel\_rails cluster::restart  
> my dev sensibilities appreciate the attempt, at least until its  
> Thanks,
> 
> * * *
> 
> Rails mailing list  
> removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
> [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails)

–

```auto
Jason Y. -- Systems Engineer, eXtension
  http://about.extension.org/wiki/Jason_Young
______________________________________
```