# Switchtower for distribution?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/switchtower-for-distribution/51678>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 5, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/switchtower-for-distribution/51678 "2006-01-05T21:55:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/spdemac)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/switchtower-for-distribution/51678/1 "2006-01-05T21:55:00Z")

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I am just about to dive into Switchtower, but had a thought (go  
figure?).

Could Switchtower use be inverted?

Could user, clients, or customers install switchtower and “pull”  
applications?

Just a thought.

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**Author:** ![spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/spdemac)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 10:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/switchtower-for-distribution/51678/2 "2006-01-05T22:09:43Z")

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On Jan 5, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Lon B. wrote:

> I am just about to dive into Switchtower, but had a thought (go  
> figure?).
> 
> Could Switchtower use be inverted?
> 
> Could user, clients, or customers install switchtower and “pull”  
> applications?
> 
> Just a thought.

Not with the current implementation, but it wouldn’t be hard to fix  
the transfer.rb module so that SFTP can be used both ways. Still, I  
think something like subversion is better suited for this, and  
optimized for this situation, too.

- Jamis

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**Author:** ![spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/spdemac)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/switchtower-for-distribution/51678/3 "2006-01-05T22:59:57Z")

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Jamis B. wrote:

> On Jan 5, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Lon B. wrote:
> 
> Not with the current implementation, but it wouldn’t be hard to fix  
> the transfer.rb module so that SFTP can be used both ways. Still, I  
> think something like subversion is better suited for this, and  
> optimized for this situation, too.
> 
> - Jamis

I was thinking of using Switchtower as a distribution mechanism for a  
couple for a few reasons.

If the clients machine has Ruby and Rubygem, we can walk them through  
the setting everything up.

A lot of clients have no clue about how to pull using subversion, and  
then update a running Rails application.

I am just diving into Switchtower this week, and will see if my  
assumptions are wrong. But I think it could be a pretty interesting tool  
to use for distribution of rapidly evolving applications.

Thanks for the great tool!

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**Author:** ![spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/spdemac)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/switchtower-for-distribution/51678/4 "2006-01-06T18:43:43Z")

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Sanford SV wrote:

> I think Lon is onto something with the ‘pull-deploy’ idea. Most corp  
> environments are pull-only. Having a clever way to get switchtower to  
> have a polling schedule to check for outstanding deployments sounds  
> pretty useful…

Exactly. I have spent that few weeks logging into clients servers,  
helping them install updates, migrate configuration information, etc.

If there was a tool to handle this process from the customers end,  
elegantly and efficiently, it could really be an benefit to deploy  
Rails/Switchtower.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@spdemac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/spdemac)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 1:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/switchtower-for-distribution/51678/5 "2006-01-06T13:11:22Z")

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I think Lon is onto something with the ‘pull-deploy’ idea. Most corp  
environments are pull-only. Having a clever way to get switchtower to  
have a polling schedule to check for outstanding deployments sounds  
pretty useful…