What are best practices for deploying a Catalyst application to a production server?

Question

What is a good way to deploy Catalyst applications to a production server? Currently I simply have a FastCGI dispatch script in the root of the repository and when I want to update the server code, I push the branch to the server. This is quite simple, but not perfect. If the code fails the tests on the server machine (for example because of unsatisfied dependencies), I am left with broken application. How do you deploy your Catalyst applications? Do you have a better way?

Answer 1

A combination of a proxy load-balancer and two flip-flop fastcgi applications running alternatively as production and staging applications would be your best bet. What web server are you using? If it happens to be Lighttpd, then have a look at these links:

• Deploying Catalyst applications with lighttpd and FastCGI

• High Availability using Catalyst & FastCGI external server