On GitHub, DDOSs, and deploys

When GitHub goes down, you can almost hear the wailing in the streets. GitHub has cemented itself as a central part of many development workflows, and while much of that is unaffected by the occasional DDOS, one element in particular has the potential to cause a lot of trouble: deploys.

Standard practice for many deployment tools (e.g., Capistrano) critically relies on the GitHub repository being available – checking out the latest code either on the remote server itself or locally before pushing it to the remote box. If GitHub’s unavailable, all of that comes to a screeching halt.

Enter: deus_ex (github). It’s a simple RubyGem meant to work around this exact problem.

Say GitHub is being DDOSed and you need to deploy – just install the gem, ensure your AWS credentials are correct in ~/.fog, and:

$ deus_ex
[DEUS EX] connection established
[DEUS EX] creating server (this may take a couple of minutes)
[DEUS EX] server created
[DEUS EX] initializing git repo
[DEUS EX] git repo initialized
[DEUS EX] adding local git remote
[DEUS EX] pushing to remote
The authenticity of host 'ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com (xx.xx.xx.xx)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com,xx.xx.xx.xx' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Counting objects: 126, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (78/78), done.
Writing objects: 100% (126/126), 13.70 KiB, done.
Total 126 (delta 51), reused 104 (delta 42)
To ubuntu@ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:deus_ex_project.git
 * [new branch]      master -> master
[DEUS EX] removing local git remote
[DEUS EX]
[DEUS EX] you can now deploy from ubuntu@ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:deus_ex_project.git

Then, jump over to your deploy tool, set it to look at your new repository instead of GitHub, and deploy away!

Once you’re done, you’ll need to clean up the instance:

$ deus_ex cleanup
[DEUS EX] connection established
[DEUS EX] server destroyed

And be sure to set your deploy tool to look at GitHub again for future deploys!