== Rake & Recipes

=== Q: Why is there no vlad:restart?
=== A: It is cleaner!

We don't want to have to think about what state we're in and where. So vlad:start does a restart if necessary. Restart is just "start again" after all... That is what start does.

=== Q: Why are there no before_action and after_action hooks?
=== A: Because we use rake!

Rake don't need no stinkin' hooks! They're too clever. Last I checked before_after_before_start worked in cap... how? why? I dunno...

To extend a task (adding something after), just define it again:

  task :action1 do
    puts "one fish, two fish"
  end

  task :action1 do
    puts "red fish, blue fish"
  end

To prepend on a task, add a dependency:

  task :action2 do
    puts "red fish, blue fish"
  end

  task :myaction do
    puts "one fish, two fish"
  end

  task :action2 => :myaction

=== Q: How do I invoke another rule?
=== A: The easiest way is via dependencies.

  task :shazam! => [:action1, :action2]

 The other way is to look it up and call invoke:

  task :shazam! do
    Rake::Task[:action1].invoke
    Rake::Task[:action2].invoke
  end

(Or, cheat and call out to rake again: sh "rake action1")

== Using SSH

=== Q: Is there any way to set the ssh user?
=== A: Yes, using ~/.ssh/config

  Host example.com
    User fluffy_bunny

OR: Alternatively, you can do this within your recipes like so:

  set :user, "fluffy_bunny"
  set :domain, "#{user}@example.com"

=== Q: Is there any way to speed up ssh connections?
=== A: Yes, add to your Host entry in ~/.ssh/config:

  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/master-%r@%h:%p

=== Q: I'm tired of typing in my password!
=== A: Me too!

Put a password on your key, distribute your public key to the server and then use ssh-agent.

Check out this tiny tutorial at LBL: A brief ssh-agent tutorial <http://upc.lbl.gov/docs/user/sshagent.html>

If you're on a mac, use SSHKeychain, we love it. <http://www.sshkeychain.org/>
