App launcher and autoupdater

This is an app launcher and autoupdater using forever as process monitor and gpg for package verification.

Preparing your app

• Run launchify init in your application root directory. Answer some questions about your app and your configuration will be created.

• Create an application package: $ tar cvzf my-app-1.0.tar.gz my-app/

• Sign the package: $ gpg -b -u <your key id> my-app-1.0.tar.gz

Upload both files to your repository and update your RELEASE file.

Repository layout

The repository should be located on a webserver like http://my-app.example.com/app-updates/ with the following repository structure:

/app-updates
/app-updates/my-app-gnu-linux-1.23.42b.tar.gz
/app-updates/my-app-gnu-linux-1.23.42b.tar.gz.sig

And versioning information:

/app-updates/RELEASE

RELEASE file format

The RELEASE file contains the following plaintext information:

CURRENT 1.23.42b my-app-gnu-linux-1.23.42b.tar.gz

The version string consisting of MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH may only contain hexadecimal characters.

Deploy your application

$ mkdir my-app
$ cd my-app && launchify http://updates.example.com/app-updates/

This will download and install the current application version.

Launch your application by running $ launchify in your application root directory.

App configuration

An app is configured by placing a launchify.yml into it's root directory.

Options:

• app

  • .name - The application name
  • .exec - Run the app by executing this in the app working directory ./app.
  • .kill - Kill option (for graceful shutdown)

• scripts - See: Scripts

• updates

  • .repository - Where to pull the updates from
  • .keep - False, all old releases will be discareded. Or number of kept releases.
  • .interval - Check for updates every 15 minutes 32 seconds.
  • .gpg
    • .key - The short hash / id of the signing GPG key.
    • .uid - The signing users GPG uid.
    • .fingerprint - The gpg key fingerprint.

Scripts

You can define scripts within your launchify configuration. Each line is a command and will be executed in the current working directory.

Commands may contain variables in Mustache notation. You can reference every JSON or YML file in the project directory by a reference path. For example:

./my-project/launchify.yml 
./my-project/package.json
./my-project/config/deploy.json

You cann now access values, stored in the files by referencing

{{launchify.app.name}} - {{package.version}}

{{config.deploy.serverPath}}

Updates

The updater will periodicaly check the RELEASE file as configured in the launchify.yml file and will download the current version.

The launcher will restart the app as needed.

Contributing

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/mhannig/launchify/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request

License

MIT