Today we pushed out the latest version of the railsmachine gem. This release contains a few bug fixes plus support for Git and Phusion Passenger. The new gem is available on RubyForge and installable with gem update railsmachine. The code is also available for browsing/forking on github.

Before trying out the gem, you’ll need to make sure that your Rails Machine is setup with the new packages. The wiki has instructions for installing Git and installing and using Passenger including Ruby Enterprise Edition.

Once your server is setup, the groovy app:switch task will let you toggle between Mongrel and Passenger. A walkthrough is available on the PhusionPassenger page. For new deployments, we’ve updated the 5 minute guide to support Git and Passenger.

I highly recommend not trying this on your production applications without a little testing. We can easily clone a staging server to help avoid any unanticipated issues (and downtime). Also, consider that if your app is running fine, don’t switch just for fun. If you have any issues or questions, please submit a request.

Certainly I have some nostalgia for the mod_proxy_balancer and mongrel_cluster approach since 1,000s of Rails applications have been deployed successfully using it. However, that was 2 1/2 years ago and Passenger is clearly the right direction. I’m behind it 100% and we’re working on some new tools that will make deployment a cinch on one or hundred servers. Stay tuned for more deployment news after the holidays.