Added an example of capistrano deployment recipes for deploying to a remote web host running Phusion Passenger (aka mod_rails), which is probably the easiest Rails deployment environment to configure.

.gitignore

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 *.tmproj
 config/database.yml
 config/environment.rb
+config/deploy.rb
 log
 tmp
 db/data.yml

Capfile

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+load 'deploy' if respond_to?(:namespace) # cap2 differentiator
+load 'config/deploy'

config/deploy.rb-example

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+#############################################################
+#	This file is designed as a starting point to use
+# capistrano to deploy the trunk of tracks to a webhost
+# where it is served using Phusion Passenger. For more
+# info on getting started with Passenger, see
+# http://www.modrails.com/
+#############################################################
+
+
+#############################################################
+#	Application
+#############################################################
+
+set :application, "tracks"
+set :deploy_to, "/var/www/apps/tracks"
+
+#############################################################
+#	Settings
+#############################################################
+
+default_run_options[:pty] = true
+ssh_options[:forward_agent] = true
+set :use_sudo, true
+set :scm_verbose, true
+set :rails_env, "production" 
+
+#############################################################
+#	Servers
+#############################################################
+
+#set :user, "your_login_name_on_your_webhost_if_different_from_local"
+set :domain, "tracks.yoursite.com"
+server domain, :app, :web
+role :db, domain, :primary => true
+
+#############################################################
+#	Git
+#############################################################
+
+set :scm, :git
+set :branch, "master"
+set :repository, "git://github.com/bsag/tracks.git"
+set :deploy_via, :remote_cache
+
+#############################################################
+#	Passenger
+#############################################################
+
+namespace :deploy do
+  desc "Symlink config files"
+  task :before_symlink do
+    run "rm #{release_path}/public/.htaccess" #not compatible with Passenger
+    run "ln -s #{shared_path}/config/database.yml #{release_path}/config/database.yml"
+    run "ln -s #{shared_path}/config/environment.rb #{release_path}/config/environment.rb"
+  end
+
+  # Restart passenger on deploy
+  desc "Restarting mod_rails with restart.txt"
+  task :restart, :roles => :app, :except => { :no_release => true } do
+    run "touch #{current_path}/tmp/restart.txt"
+  end
+  
+  [:start, :stop].each do |t|
+    desc "#{t} task is a no-op with mod_rails"
+    task t, :roles => :app do ; end
+  end
+  
+end
+
+namespace :db do
+  desc 'Dumps the production database to db/production_data.sql on the remote server'
+  task :remote_db_dump, :roles => :db, :only => { :primary => true } do
+    run "cd #{deploy_to}/#{current_dir} && " +
+      "rake RAILS_ENV=#{rails_env} db:dump_sql --trace" 
+  end
+
+  desc 'Downloads db/production_data.sql from the remote production environment to your local machine'
+  task :remote_db_download, :roles => :db, :only => { :primary => true } do  
+    execute_on_servers(options) do |servers|
+      self.sessions[servers.first].sftp.connect do |tsftp|
+        tsftp.download!("#{deploy_to}/#{current_dir}/db/production_data.sql", "db/production_data.sql")
+      end
+    end
+  end
+
+  desc 'Cleans up data dump file'
+  task :remote_db_cleanup, :roles => :db, :only => { :primary => true } do
+    execute_on_servers(options) do |servers|
+      self.sessions[servers.first].sftp.connect do |tsftp|
+        tsftp.remove! "#{deploy_to}/#{current_dir}/db/production_data.sql" 
+      end
+    end
+  end 
+
+  desc 'Dumps, downloads and then cleans up the production data dump'
+  task :remote_db_runner do
+    remote_db_dump
+    remote_db_download
+    remote_db_cleanup
+  end
+end

lib/tasks/database.rake

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+require 'rake'
+
+namespace :db do
+  desc "Dump the current SQLite3 or MySQL database to a sql file" 
+  task :dump_sql do
+    load 'config/environment.rb'
+    abcs = ActiveRecord::Base.configurations
+    case abcs[RAILS_ENV]["adapter"]
+    when 'mysql'
+      ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(abcs[RAILS_ENV])
+      File.open("db/#{RAILS_ENV}_data.sql", "w+") do |f|
+        if abcs[RAILS_ENV]["password"].blank?
+          f << `mysqldump -h #{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["host"]} -u #{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["username"]} #{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["database"]}`
+        else
+          f << `mysqldump -h #{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["host"]} -u #{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["username"]} -p#{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["password"]} #{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["database"]}`
+        end
+      end
+    when 'sqlite3'
+      ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(abcs[RAILS_ENV])
+      File.open("db/#{RAILS_ENV}_data.sql", "w+") do |f|
+        f << `sqlite3  #{abcs[RAILS_ENV]["database"]} .dump`
+      end
+    else
+      raise "Task not supported by '#{abcs[RAILS_ENV]['adapter']}'" 
+    end
+  end
+end