Automating Web Site Deployment
No more FTP
Barcamp Brighton 5th September 2009
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net http://www.flickr.com/photos/grittycitygirl/186837530/

morethanseven.net
Gareth Rushgrove
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

What do you do now?
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net http://www.flickr.com/photos/mn_francis/392404523/

- Put all files under sourcecontrol
- Move files to the server
- Copy configuration into place
- Symlink the current release
- Restart your webserver
Steps to deploy
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

Put all files under sourcecontrol
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooreynolds/2396418896/

Don't just FTP files to the server
- Anything manual is error prone
- You will miss an important file
- Deploying to multiple machines at once is hard
- You have no history, what was live a year ago?
Move all files to the server
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

Don't checkout your repo and serve from that.
- Your web servers need access to your repository
- You have to remember to limit access to hidden files
- Not all commands are atomic
- The checkout can become corrupt
Move all files to the server II
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

Do use some sort of package.
- Tar files are fine, deb files are great
- It's repeatable
- You can introspect packages
- Packages freeze a moment in time
Move all files to the server III
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

For example:
- Apache virtualhosts
- Memcache configuration
- Solr configuration
- Anything that lives in /etc in debian
Copy configuration into place
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

- Each release is stored in a unique named directory
- You could use a timestamp or a version control uid
- A symlink points at the directory
- Apache virtualhosts point at the symlink
Symlink the current release
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

> cd /srv/sample; ls
packages releases shared
> cd packages; ls
20090905142306.tar.gz
> cd ../releases; ls
20090905142306 current
Symlink the current release II
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

Restart your web server
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net http://www.flickr.com/photos/anonymouscollective/2291896028/

WARNING: Live Demo
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthur_chapman/3855590323/

You’ll probably want to move onto:
- Creating databases, or running migrations
- Rollback to a previous version
- Deploy to multiple machines at once
- Installing third party libraries
Next steps
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net

Questions?
gareth rushgrove | morethanseven.net http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasephotos/1736694514/in/photostream/