Deploying a Rails Application to Heroku

Tutorial 1 of 5

Introduction

This tutorial aims to guide you on how to deploy a Rails application to Heroku, a cloud platform that aids in app deployment. By the end of the tutorial, you will be able to:
- Understand what Heroku is and how it works
- Deploy a Rails application to Heroku
- Troubleshoot common issues

The prerequisites for this tutorial are:
- Basic knowledge of Ruby on Rails
- An existing Rails application

Step-by-Step Guide

To deploy a Rails application to Heroku, follow these steps:

Step 1: Sign Up for a Heroku Account

Go to the Heroku website and sign up for a new account.

Step 2: Install the Heroku CLI

Install the Heroku Command Line Interface (CLI). This can be done by using the following command in your terminal:

$ brew install heroku/brew/heroku

Step 3: Login to Heroku CLI

$ heroku login

Step 4: Create a New Heroku App

Navigate to your Rails application's directory and create a new Heroku app:

$ heroku create

Step 5: Deploy your Rails Application

Deploy your Rails application to Heroku:

$ git push heroku master

Code Examples

Here are some practical examples:

Example 1: Deploying a Rails application

Navigate to your Rails application's directory:

$ cd my_rails_application

Create a new Heroku app:

$ heroku create

Deploy your Rails application to Heroku:

$ git push heroku master

Expected output:

Counting objects: 375, done.
Delta compression using up to 12 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (354/354), done.
Writing objects: 100% (375/375), 36.85 MiB | 1.20 MiB/s, done.
Total 375 (delta 86), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: Compressing source files... done.
remote: Building source:
remote: 
remote: -----> Ruby app detected
remote: -----> Compiling Ruby/Rails
remote: -----> Using Ruby version: ruby-2.5.1
remote: -----> Installing dependencies using bundler 1.15.2
remote: -----> Detecting rake tasks
remote: -----> Preparing app for Rails asset pipeline
remote: -----> Discovering process types
remote:        Procfile declares types -> (none)
remote:        Default types for buildpack -> console, rake, web
remote: -----> Compressing...
remote:        Done: 46.6M
remote: -----> Launching...
remote:        Released v7
remote:        https://my-rails-application.herokuapp.com/ deployed to Heroku
remote: 
remote: Verifying deploy... done.
To https://git.heroku.com/my-rails-application.git
 * [new branch]      master -> master

Summary

In this tutorial, we learned how to deploy a Rails application to Heroku. The next steps would be to learn how to manage your Heroku app, including scaling, configuring add-ons, and viewing logs.

Practice Exercises

Deploy a simple "Hello, World!" Rails application to Heroku.
Try to deploy a Rails application with a PostgreSQL database.
Try to troubleshoot a common deployment error.

Remember, practice is key to mastering any concept.