Rake Tasks

rake cache:clear                      # Clears all cached pages
rake db:bootstrap                     # Loads a schema.rb file into the database and then loads the initial database fixtures.
rake db:bootstrap:copy_default_theme  # Copy default theme to site theme
rake db:bootstrap:load                # Load initial database fixtures (in db/bootstrap/*.yml) into the current environment's database.  Load specific fixtures using FIXTURES=x,y
rake db:fixtures:load                 # Load fixtures into the current environment's database.  Load specific fixtures using FIXTURES=x,y
rake db:migrate                       # Migrate the database through scripts in db/migrate. Target specific version with VERSION=x
rake db:schema:dump                   # Create a db/schema.rb file that can be portably used against any DB supported by AR
rake db:schema:load                   # Load a schema.rb file into the database
rake db:sessions:clear                # Clear the sessions table
rake db:sessions:create               # Creates a sessions table for use with CGI::Session::ActiveRecordStore
rake db:structure:dump                # Dump the database structure to a SQL file
rake db:test:clone                    # Recreate the test database from the current environment's database schema
rake db:test:clone_structure          # Recreate the test databases from the development structure
rake db:test:prepare                  # Prepare the test database and load the schema
rake db:test:purge                    # Empty the test database
rake deploy                           # Push the latest revision into production using the release manager
rake diff_from_last_deploy            # Describe the differences between HEAD and the last production release
rake doc:app                          # Build the app HTML Files
rake doc:clobber_app                  # Remove rdoc products
rake doc:clobber_plugins              # Remove plugin documentation
rake doc:clobber_rails                # Remove rdoc products
rake doc:plugins                      # Generate documation for all installed plugins
rake doc:rails                        # Build the rails HTML Files
rake doc:reapp                        # Force a rebuild of the RDOC files
rake doc:rerails                      # Force a rebuild of the RDOC files
rake edge                             # freeze rails edge
rake log:clear                        # Truncates all *.log files in log/ to zero bytes
rake rails:freeze:edge                # Lock to latest Edge Rails or a specific revision with REVISION=X (ex: REVISION=4021) or a tag with TAG=Y (ex: TAG=rel_1-1-0)
rake rails:freeze:gems                # Lock this application to the current gems (by unpacking them into vendor/rails)
rake rails:unfreeze                   # Unlock this application from freeze of gems or edge and return to a fluid use of system gems
rake rails:update                     # Update both configs, scripts and public/javascripts from Rails
rake rails:update:configs             # Update config/boot.rb from your current rails install
rake rails:update:javascripts         # Update your javascripts from your current rails install
rake rails:update:scripts             # Add new scripts to the application script/ directory
rake remote_exec                      # Execute a specific action using the release manager
rake rollback                         # Rollback to the release before the current release in production
rake show_deploy_tasks                # Enumerate all available deployment tasks
rake stats                            # Report code statistics (KLOCs, etc) from the application
rake test                             # Test all units and functionals
rake test:functionals                 # Run tests for functionalsdb:test:prepare
rake test:integration                 # Run tests for integrationdb:test:prepare
rake test:plugins                     # Run tests for pluginsenvironment
rake test:recent                      # Run tests for recentdb:test:prepare
rake test:uncommitted                 # Run tests for uncommitteddb:test:prepare
rake test:units                       # Run tests for unitsdb:test:prepare
rake tmp:cache:clear                  # Clears all files and directories in tmp/cache
rake tmp:clear                        # Clear session, cache, and socket files from tmp/
rake tmp:create                       # Creates tmp directories for sessions, cache, and sockets
rake tmp:pids:clear                   # Clears all files in tmp/pids
rake tmp:sessions:clear               # Clears all files in tmp/sessions
rake tmp:sockets:clear                # Clears all files in tmp/sockets
rake update_dialog_helper             # Copies the latest dialog.js to the application's public directory

U can always check the rake tasks list using rake –tasks inside ur rails application.

Log rotation in Linux

This thing bugged me a lot. In general all applications create logs and depending on how much information is passed on to the log file, log file might end up taking gigs of space (as it happened in my case). So I searched for a solution and got one. It is ‘logrotate’. Using logrotate on linux lets you configure the rotation of log files. It can create new log files, remove old ones after compressing them. This can be done on daily or monthly basis or you can even customize it as per your need.

Lets say you have a log file @ this location:

/usr/local/log/file_to_rotate.log

You can rotate this file using a simple configuration file which should look like this:

# Your logs:
/usr/local/log/file_to_rotate.log {
daily
missingok
rotate 14
compress
delaycompress
notifempty
copytruncate
}

This will compress the log file and max 14 compressed, rolled over files will be created (one per day so total 14 in 2 weeks). After that older rolled over files will be deleted. So at a given time, only 14 rolled over files would exist on the file system. You might be required to restart the server in some cases. Auto restart can be done with the following addition in the above written configuration script:

/usr/local/log/file_to_rotate.log {
daily
missingok
rotate 14
compress
delaycompress
notifempty
copytruncate
postrotate
/etc/init.d/myserver restart
endscript
}


postrotate…endscript block lets you specify things you need to do after rotating the log. With this script in place @ this location:

/user/conf_folder/rotation.conf

Lets add this in cron tasks. You need to do this for adding a new cron job:

$ crontab -e

Add the following code in the file:

00 00 * * * /usr/sbin/logrotate -s /home/user/config/logrotate.status /user/conf_folder/rotation.conf


Cron will take care of executing logrotate @ midnight everyday. Out of the three arguements, first one is the place where logrotate resides, second one following -s arguement is the one where logrotate will be keeping its status file and the last one is the configuration file you made in the first step.