This document discusses WordPress development environments. It recommends setting up separate local, staging, and live environments. The local environment is for development on one's own machine. The staging environment resembles the live site for testing purposes. The live environment is the actual public site. It provides tips for setting up servers, configuring domains and files, syncing databases, and using version control across the different environments.

1. Ohad Raz
WordPress Consultant
WordCamp Jerusalem 2013

2. WordPress Development Environments
Ohad Raz
WordPress Consultant
WordCamp Jerusalem 2013

3. Who Am I?
• Father and husband.
• Ohad Raz (aka Bainternet).
• WordPress Consultant Developer and Designer
• Plugin developer 18 published plugins with over 132,000 downloads.
• Core Contributor as of 3.5
• Moderator and Editor @ WordPress Answers
And I also fight crime at night

4. What's this about?
• Development Environments.
• Development Environments Workflow.
• Tips and Tricks:
• Server.
• Domain.
• Files.
• Database.
• Some Version Control.

5. Environments
Local / Development Staging / Testing Live / Production

6. Development Environment
Development usually refers to your
local machine where you have your
web server, database, IDE, and
related tools installed.
Its where you actually develop your project.

7. Staging Environment
The Staging Environment is a server the
resembles where the project is actually
going to live and where you upload your
work for testing.
Its mostly used for testing and showing
off your work.

8. Live Environment
The live environment is where the
project is live on the web with real
content and where users actually
interact with your work
It’s the actual site.

9. But why?
All Environments:
• Mistakes and accidents happen.
• You want to be taken seriously
Development:
Staging:
• Work Faster.
• Client approval.
• Freedom to experiment.
• Test on an environment
• Test multiple versions of PHP.
similar to production.
• Teams can work
together (with version
control).
Live: Because Every Site need a Home.

10. Development Environment
Server
WAMP MAMP XAMPP
Windows Mac X any platform
Apache Apache Apache
MySQL MySQL MySQL
PHP PHP PHP
Perl

11. Development Environment
Server
Install WordPress Locally :
1. Download WordPress.
2. Extract the downloaded zip file.
3. Create a database.
4. Configure wp-config.php
5. Run WordPress Setup
Or do it all at once with WordPress Auto Installer
This script will download the latest copy of WordPress,
extract the files to the directory you named, create
a new database and take you straight to where all you
have to do is set you sites name, your username and pass
and you
have a new WordPress Installation ready to roll.

12. Domain Issue
Live: domain.com
Dev: domain.dev
This way you can use a simple Search and Replace on files
and database dump.
Or use real domain name Using the hosts file.
Live & Dev: domain.com
# Point domain.com to your computer
127.0.0.1 domain.com
Windows: C:WINDOWSsystem32driversetchosts
Mac/Linux: /etc/hosts

13. Domain Issue
Create A Virtual Host
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>
DocumentRoot "C:/wamp/www/WordCamp/local"
ServerName domain.dev
<Directory "C:/wamp/www/WordCamp/local">
Options FollowSymLinks Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
[wamp] c:wampbinapacheApacheVERSIONconfhttpd.conf
[mamp] /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
[xampp] ..apacheconfextrahttpd-vhosts.conf

14. Files Sync
FTP sync Only copy changed files based on size or date
FileZilla - http://filezilla-project.org/
Command line Rsync - http://rsync.samba.org/
Wget - http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
Capistrano* - http://capistranorb.com/
Version control Git - http://git-scm.com/
SVN - http://subversion.apache.org/
HG - http://mercurial.selenic.com/

15. Files Sync
wp-config.php
One level above the WordPress Root Directory in all environments
and ignored in version control.
Or a separate file per each environment:
//dev-config.php
/* Development Environment */
define('WP_ENV', 'local');
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('DB_NAME', 'local_db_name');
define('DB_USER', 'local_db_user');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'local_db_password');
define('DB_HOST', 'local_db_host');
//stage-config.php
/* Staging Environment */
define('WP_ENV', 'stage');
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('DB_NAME', 'stage _db_name');
define('DB_USER', 'stage _db_user');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'stage _db_password');
define('DB_HOST', 'stage _db_host');

16. Files Sync
wp-config.php
//First we check for development env
if ( file_exists( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/dev-config.php' ) ) {
include( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/dev-config.php' );
} elseif ( file_exists( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/stage-config.php' ) ) {
//then we check for staging env
include( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/stage-config.php' );
}else {
//if we got here then we are at production env.
define('WP_ENV', 'production');
define('WP_DEBUG', false);
define( 'DB_NAME', 'production_db' );
define( 'DB_USER', 'production_user' );
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'production_password' );
define( 'DB_HOST', 'production_db_host' ); }
}
…

17. Database Sync
Native Export Import
It's best to import into Dev then move the database over to
production because when you import it will download all the
new media files from production.

18. Database Sync
Database Management tools:
Export & import the database using PHPMyAdmin or alternative.
Use ”add drop tables” This will delete the old tables when you import.
Use the ”INSERT IGNORE INTO” MySQL command to add the new tables from dev.
or the ”REPLACE” command to overwrite duplicate rows in the same table.

19. Database Sync
Use A plugin:
WP Migrate DB
Which takes care of
serialized data
Ex:
s:9:“domin.dev"
Becomes:
s:11:“domain.info"

20. Database Sync
Use Command line via SSH:
# Export a database to DBdump.sql
mysqldump --add-drop-table -u USERNAME –p DATABASE_NAME> DBdump.sql
# Import a database into MySQL
mysql DATABASE_NAME -u USERNAME -p < DBdump.sql
Remote to local and visa-versa:
# Export remote database directly to local database
ssh user@site.com "mysqldump --add-drop-table -u USERNAME -pPassword DATABASE_NAME" | mysql DATABASE_NAME
# Export local database directly to remote database
mysqldump --add-drop-table DATABASE_NAME | ssh user@site.com "mysql -u USERNAME -pPassword DATABASE_NAME "

21. All Around Solutions
Server / Stack:
Bitnami - simple stack with WordPress bundled in.
Instant WordPress - The easiest and quickest way to install WordPress!
DesktopServer - Another easy way with virtual servers and deploy capability.
Plugins:
BackupBuddy - Back up, restore and move WordPress.
Duplicator – “ability to migrate a site from one location to another location in 3
steps.”

22. Version Control
Version Control - track your files over time.
But Why?
• Easily un-break your code.
 Feel free to experiment.
 No more of this:
 Logo.png
 Logo_final.png
 Logo_last.png
 Logo_last2.png
• Never. Lose. Anything.
 If You Ever
 Lost a file
 Written over a file
 Made a change that broke your code

23. Version Control
Some More reasons
• One canonical version.
 There is a clear place to go for the primary copy of the code.
• Collaboration
 Track changes For teams
 See what others have done
 Ability to reject / avoid bad changes
 Simultaneous editing
 Merge
• Deployment!!!

24. Version Control
Methods:
• Version Control the entire WordPress environment
• Version Control only the WP-Content Directory
• Version Control only a specific Theme or Plugin

25. Version Control
Simple git commands:
• git init - initializes a git repository
 git init - initializes a git repository in current folder
 git init foldername - initializes a git repository in foldername
• git add – tell git to keep track.
 git add . - add everything.
 git add somefile.php – add somefile.php
• git commit - stage files / stores a version of the current code
 git commit -m "commit message“
• git status - allows you to see the current state of your code.
• git pull – pull updates
• git push – push updates

26. Version Control
On Local Host:
• Download and Install WordPress.
• Create a new repository.
• Tell git to ignore wp-config.php
• Add and commit changes.
git init .
touch .gitignore | echo wp-config.php >>.gitignore
git add .
git commit –m”initial WordPress Commit”

27. Version Control
Repository Hosts
GITHUB - web-based hosting service for software development projects
that use the Git revision control system.
BitBucket - web-based hosting service for projects that use either
the Mercurial or Git revision control systems

28. Version Control
Create a new BitBucket Repository

29. Version Control
Create a new BitBucket Repository

30. Version Control
On Local Host:
• Add Bitbucket as remote repository
• Push to Bitbucket.
git remote add origin https://bitbucket.org/bainternet/some-wordpress-project.git
git push

31. Version Control
On Stage/Production:
• Clone Bitbucket Repository.
• Run WordPress install once.
git clone https://bitbucket.org/bainternet/some-wordpress-project.git

32. Version Control
Workflow:
On local On Server
git pull git pull
git checkout -b dev
//make some changes
git commit -m "made dev changes"
git checkout master
git merge dev
git commit -m “merged dev changes"
git push

33. Version Control
On local On Server
git pull
git checkout -b feature-x git pull
//make some changes
git commit -m “started feature-x "
git checkout master
git checkout -b bug-y
//fix bug y
git commit -m “Fixed bug y"
git checkout master
git merge bug-y
git commit -m “merged bug y fix"
git push
git checkout feature-x
//finish working on feature x
git commit -m “finished feature-x "
git checkout master
git merge dev
git commit -m “merged dev changes"
git push

34. Questions???

35. Thank You!