Here's the Capistrano code I've been using with mod_rails: namespace :deploy do 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 I think that's all there