Web applications are becoming increasingly more complex, so deployment is not just transferring files with FTP anymore. We will go over the different challenges and how to deploy our PHP applications effectively, safely and consistently with the latest tools and techniques. We will also look at tools that complement deployment with management, configuration and monitoring.

1. Pablo Godel @pgodel
http://summits.phparch.com/
http://joind.in/8966
Rock Solid Deployment
of PHP Applications
Tuesday, July 16, 13

2. Who Am I?
⁃ Born in Argentina, living in the US since 1999
⁃ PHP & Symfony developer
⁃ Founder of the original PHP mailing list in spanish
⁃ Co-founder of ServerGrove
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3. Deployment
?
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4. Deployment
Software deployment is all of the activities that make
a software system available for use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_deployment
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5. Deployment
A very important part of
the application life-cycle
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6. Deployment
A very important critical part
of the application life-cycle
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7. Deployment
It should not be an
after thought
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8. Deployment
It should be predictable
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9. Deployment
The more you do it the
better it goes
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10. Tuesday, July 16, 13

11. Deployment: Goals
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12. Deployment: Goals
One-click deploys
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13. Continuous deploys
Deployment: Goals
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14. Web Apps
Deployment
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15. Web Apps
Deployment
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16. Web Apps
Deployment
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17. Anytime & Anywhere
Deployment: Goals
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18. Anyone
Deployment: Goals
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19. Reliable
Deployment: Goals
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20. Rollbacks
Deployment: Goals
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21. No downtime
Deployment: Goals
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22. Reusable
Deployment: Goals
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23. Scalable
Deployment: Goals
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24. • One-click / continuous deploys
• Anytime & Anywhere
• Anyone
• No downtime
• Predictable & Reliable
• Rollbacks
• Reusable
• Scalable
Deployment: Goals
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25. Deployment Facts
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26. Deployment: Fact #1
Deployment starts with the developer
• Setup development environment to be as close
as possible to productions servers
• Setup test/qa/staging servers
• Use Vagrant to manage VMs
• Use Puppet/Chef to manage OS packages/
configuration
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27. Deployment: Fact #2
Success linked to server OS setup
• Use Puppet/Chef to manage OS packages/
configuration
• Create OS packages for 3rd party software
• Setup your own package repositories
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28. Deployment: Fact #3
Monitoring is uptime
• Use monitoring tools to know what is going on
with your servers (Ganglia, Cacti, Zabbix, etc.)
• Add monitoring and metrics to your app
(Graphite, StatsD, New Relic)
• Use your logs wisely (Graylog, Logstash, Kibana)
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29. Deployment Methodologies
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30. Deployment Methodologies
• VIM-style
• FTP uploads
• rsync
• source control (svn, git)
• Build tools (ant, phing)
• Specialized tools (capistrano, fabric, etc)
• Package based (rpm, deb, etc)
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31. Web Apps Deployment:
Steps overview
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32. Web Apps Deployment:
First time
• Copy files to server(s)
• Set server-side configurations
• Load DB fixtures
• Process and install assets
• Warm up cache
• “Enable” site
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33. • Copy files to server(s)
• Apply DB updates (migrations)
• Process and install assets
• Warm up cache
• “Enable” site
Web Apps Deployment:
Subsequent times
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34. Deployment: Challenges
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35. Deployment: Challenges
• rsync
• git pull
• setup git repo on local network to save
bandwidth and avoid issues if git server is down
(i.e. github)
Challenge:
Fast & reliable copy of files
Solutions:
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36. Deployment: Challenges
• use a tool that allows to go from 1 to n servers
easily (i.e. capistrano)
• pssh allows to send commands to n servers in
parallel
• package your app in OS packages
like .rpm/.deb to easily install across n servers
Challenge:
Scalable
Solutions:
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37. Deployment: Challenges
• test!
• tag releases
• dedicated branches (master for production)
• deploy each release in its own directory
Challenge:
Rollbacks
Solutions:
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38. Deployment: Challenges
• use ssh based connections
• don’t store passwords on source control
• store sensitive strings (passwords) in server
environment variables
Challenge:
Secure
Solutions:
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39. Deployment: Challenges
Challenge:
DB migrations
Solutions:
• Doctrine Migrations
• Consider document oriented DBs like
MongoDB
“The best migrations are the ones you don’t have to do”
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40. Deployment: Challenges
Challenge:
Static assets
Solutions:
• YUICompress shrinks JS and CSS file sizes
• Enable web server compression
• Add versioning to static assets links (code.js?v=1)
• Assetic combines multiple files into one
• Run utilities locally or in a staging server, deploy
result
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41. Deployment: Challenges
Challenge:
Caching
Solutions:
• Update one server while others handle load
• Group servers and update group at a time
• execute commands on “finalize” to clear up APC
cache
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42. Deployment: Challenges
Challenge:
File permission conflicts
Solutions:
• Run Apache/PHP with same user
• Use php-fpm instead of mod_php
• Create “deploy” user and add web server to the
group
• Use setfacl to give write access to multiple users
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43. Web Apps Deployment:
Other common pitfalls
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44. Web Apps Deployment:
Other common pitfalls
• Case sensitive filesystems
• Configuration differences
• Outdated 3rd party software
• Github down
$ git daemon --base-path=/git/repo/path/ --
export-all
$ git clone git://127.0.0.1/repo
http://ozmm.org/posts/when_github_goes_down.html
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45. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
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46. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
Simplest continuous deployment ever!
<?php
exec(‘/usr/bin/env -i HOME=/var/www git pull’);
echo “All done!”;
hook.php
screenshot
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47. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
Capistrano
• Ruby based
• Very extensible
• Large number of extensions
• Simple client side installation
$ gem install capistrano
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48. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
Capistrano
set :application, "myapp" # Application name
set :deploy_to, "/var/www/myapp"
set :user, "deployer"
set :use_sudo, false # sudo isn't required
set :deploy_via, :remote_cache
set :repository, "git@github.com:user/repo.git"
role :web, "server.example.com",“server2.example.com”
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49. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
$ cap deploy:setup
Capistrano
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50. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
|-- releases
`-- shared
|-- logs
`-- uploads
Capistrano
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51. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
Capistrano
$ cap deploy
$ cap deploy:migrations
$ cap deploy:rollback
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52. Web Apps Deployment:
Examples
|-- current
(symlink to releases/20130112)
|-- releases
| `-- 20130112
`-- shared
|-- logs
`-- uploads
Capistrano
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53. Web Apps Deployment:
Other options
• Fabric
• Phing
• Jenkins
• WePloy
https://github.com/rlerdorf/WePloy
• Magallanes
http://magallanes.zenreworks.com/
• Idephix
http://getidephix.com/
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54. Web Apps Deployment:
Tools
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55. Web Apps Deployment:
Tools
App Metrics: StatsD & Graphite
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56. Web Apps Deployment:
Tools
Logging: Logstash
Ship logs from any source, parse them, get the right
timestamp, index them, and search them
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57. Web Apps Deployment:
Tools
Logging: Logstash
Configure Apache to log json
LogFormat "{ "@timestamp": "%{%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z}t", "@fields": { "client": "%a",
"duration_usec": %D, "status": %s, "request": "%U%q", "method": "%m", "referrer": "%
{Referer}i" } }" logstash_json
# Write our 'logstash_json' logs to logs/access_json.log
CustomLog logs/access_json.log logstash_json
{ "@timestamp": "2012-08-22T14:35:19-0700", "client": "127.0.0.1",
"duration_usec": 532, "status": 404, "request": "/favicon.ico",
"method": "GET", "referrer": "-" }
Result
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58. Web Apps Deployment:
Tools
Logging: Graylog
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59. Web Apps Deployment:
Tools
Logging: Kibana
Kibana is a user friendly way to view, search and visualize
your log data
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60. Web Apps Deployment:
Tools
Packaging: fpm
https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm
Build packages for multiple platforms (deb, rpm, etc) with great ease and sanity.
fpm -s dir -t rpm -n "myapp" -v 1.0 /var/www/myapp
fpm -s dir -t deb -a all -n myapp -v 1.0 /etc/apache2/
conf.d/my.conf /var/www/myapp
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61. Web Apps Deployment:
Summary
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62. •Stop using FTP
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63. •Stop using FTP
•Plan early
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64. •Stop using FTP
•Plan early
•Practice
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65. •Stop using FTP
•Plan early
•Practice
•Monitor
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66. •Stop using FTP
•Plan early
•Practice
•Monitor
•AUTOMATE!
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67. QUESTIONS?
Slides: http://slideshare.net/pgodel
Twitter: @pgodel
E-mail: pablo@servergrove.com
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68. Thank you!
Slides: http://slideshare.net/pgodel
Twitter: @pgodel
E-mail: pablo@servergrove.com
http://joind.in/8966
Tuesday, July 16, 13