Random project chooser for laravel - php

today I have two similar Laravel projects, they are exactly the same except for the Laravel version, the first is running on 5.5, and the second is the updated version running on Laravel 9. The Laravel 9 one is not in production because we need a way to test it and check if everything is working after the update. My question is if there's a way to redirect to some clients only the newer version. The projects for the clients are exactly the same.
In conclusion I need a way to show to like 20% of the clients the newer version, and the older version for the other 80%, is possible to do this? Is there a better way to test the newer project for errors?
Thanks in advance.

You can use a Content Delivery Network e.g Cloudflare or something like AWS' CloudFront. You will be able to then configure the quota's in terms of where the relevant traffic will be redirected to.
Here is a link to an article on Cloudflare
and another one on AWS
You can also check with your host on how to configure a similar setup.
All the best

Related

Multiple Instances of XAMPP on an External Portable Harddisk

Running Windows 11, 64 bit I need to install multiple instances of XAMPP on my external Hard disk. The drive will always be associated with the letter Z.
The purpose is to learn XAMPP including what the stack is made of i.e., Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, and PHP. Learning route is through various tutorials and online video courses such as:
WordPress Full Course in ONE VIDEO | ZERO to HERO | STEP BY STEP
How To Make A Digital Agency Website From Scratch In 2022 (WordPress And Elementor For Beginners)
These tutorials/courses asks to make projects such as the first is centered around "mywebsite" and the second is "jimakes". In order to do so I was thinking to have one installation of XAMPP at (I am using the Lab as the main folder in the drive Z)
Z:\Lab\xampp\htdocs\mywebsite
Z:\Lab\xampp\htdocs\jimakes
Now I will have 1 XAMPP installation and multiple WordPress installations (The WordPress installtions will be in each of the projects respective folders so that tinkering one WordPress installation does not effect the other).
The problem is following through the 2nd course/tutorial and installing the WordPress theme (jimakes), Astra, I came across problems that required me to change some settings in the .htaccess file and php.ini files which I messed up. This resulted in messing up the "mywebsite". This required me to uninstall everything and do a clean reinstall of XAMPP and WordPress. And that resulting in also removing the htdocs folder. (There is an option of not removing that folder during the uninstall process but I don't want to do that say just to be sure I have a clean reinstall with default settings).
Now I am thinking to have multiple XAMPP installations and a single WordPress installation such as
Z:\Lab\mywebsite\xampp\htdocs\PUBLIC_HTML
Z:\Lab\jimakes\xampp\htdocs\PUBLICC_HTML
The purpose is two fold. First I can happily chip away with messing everything up in one project and it won't effect the other. The second I am trying to replicate a real hosting live server from one of the server providers such as Go Daddy or Host Gator as much as possible so that migrating from the local development environment to the production one is as pain less as possible when I move on to real projects.
Now to cut the story short and trying to catch the river in a cup I would ask
To create a exact replica of the hosting providers environment on a local development environment with the aim of firstly learning technologies such as PHP, MariaDB/MySQL, WordPress and later on exporting real life project from the local development to hosting environment with the confidence that all I need to do is move the files (FTP via FileZilla?). This cannot be achieved since if I am not wrong, one can never install cPanel locally. Secondly who has the time to consider in so many variables for example you cannot create a new database or user using phpMyAdmin in a hosting account but you can on a local environment.
WHM & Cpanel cannot create database
What needs to be changed for once and once only. You will notice that I have changed the htdocs to PUBLIC_HTML as the root document folder (Is it same as the Server Folder?). The aim is to actually learn PHP and WordPress and MySQL without being bothered about why it's not working. I know why it's not working itself is an important part of learning but it just muddles the waters since your objective is to learn the technologies and not why it's not working (The why it's not working comes later, don't ask me why, I am too dumb to learn two things at a time).
I tried installing Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP manually without using XAMPP. This resulted in learning about more about installations and errors and how to fix them and blah blah blah rather than actually learning PHP, MariaDB/MySQL and WordPress. Exactly the thing that I was trying to avoid. Some would argue you cannot learn one without the other but I already have HTML and CSS under my belt (I know, I know, JavaScript, I will get there) and again the purpose is to move to the backend and save time by avoiding and worrying about how to fix them errors (took me two hours to figure out why my php manual installation was not working. Turns out one needs to set PATH in system environment variables in Windows 11)
PHP Not Executable in Command Prompt Windows, Environment Variable is set
Why can't I just use a hosting provider production environment? Than why XAMPP is there?
You have a lot of asks here, you shoould split them to individual asks, i Will help you with the Title Ask.
Is as common task have into dev environment many projects, but you can run all with a single instance and a single port, such as 80 in dev machine.
You can set Many Virtual Hosts so istead of use default http://localhost you can create a better host for each project, Eg:
http://project1.local
http://project2.local
and proceed with development with no pain, here a tutorial, teaching how you can create this env.
https://www.wdb24.com/how-to-setup-multiple-virtual-hosts-on-xampp/

Is the Caffeinated/modules plugin for Laravel still maintained?

I'm currently in the process of upgrading a Laravel 5.2 project (yes, I know, I know...) to the latest Laravel version (9 at the time of writing). This project uses Caffeinated/Modules to structure the code - currently on version 3.
On checking the compatibilities using Laravel Shift, it appears there is no version of Caffeinated/Modules compatible with Laravel 9. In addition, on checking the Modules project on GitHub, no updates have been made to it in the past year - which is slightly worrying.
So I'm wondering if this plugin is effectively obsolete? (or soon-to-be?)
Does anyone know if there are any plans to keep it going in the future? Or is it worth ditching it now?
(For background, I tried a single "shift" from 5.2 to 5.3, and so far have been unable to get the Module routes to work. I wonder if the Modules could be the biggest headache in the upgrade process).
Any insider knowledge/advice/experience gratefully received!

Upgrading Laravel Apps

The next Laravel release is 5.5 which arrives this July. Now let's say I make a policy where I'll upgrade my web app every year in July/August to the latest version.
During that year of running the web app what should I do to keep it up to date with security fixes and bug fixes?
For example let's say I deploy on version 5.5.2 and by December there's a 5.5.8 what's the best way to keep the minor changes stay up to date without jeopardising the web apps availability?
I asusume you would need something to run commands like composer update Every so often etc. But what would the exact commands be and can they be run using Laravels scheduled so it is cross platform - if so, how?
Thanks!
I will not run a composer update command as a cronjob. Packages can change and that can deprecate functions or change the way how they works: what will you do in this situation? Laravel itself has a great documentation (ex https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/upgrade) showing what will brake down of you upgrade from one version to another one.
The better approach is having a development branch where test the upgrade, fix pieces of code and then deploy everything online. Just in this way you will be comfortable not to have any surprise...

Workflow for PHP website development with multiple developers & designers

I thought this had to be a common problem, but I was not able to find an easy solution. The problem is, we are working with multiple people on developing a website, without any version control involved. Which leads to obvious problems with conflicting edits and someone messing up the whole site with no simple way to recover. Currently some work with Filezila + Notepad++ directly downloading, additing and uploading the files.
Others work with Netbeans on their local copy and upload the files automatically when saving.
What I would like to do now is intruduce a version control system that still lets everyone work on the live system, but checks for conflicts and allows to rollback files to previous versions.
I tried to set up GIT with a post-receive hook that copies everything to the webroot, but failed in doing so. Besides I think SVN might be a better solution because everyone has just to checkout/commit instead of pull/commit/push.
Is it possible to set up GIT/SVN the way I like to?
Is there a better solution?
I have an SVN server setup and a cron job on the dev server to pull the latest revision out every 60 seconds. Then I have another script on the live server that isn't croned but I can manually run which updates the live server to the specified revision when I request it.
This allows the devs to commit and automatically test on the dev server pretty much real time and then when we've reviewed the code changes etc on the dev server and we're happy with it then I manually run the update on the live server.
The "common" problems come from you letting them work on live website ...
A developer on live will always find a way to ruin your day!

Setting up an efficient and effective development process

I am in the midst of setting up the development environment (PHP/MySQL) for my start-up. We use three sets of servers:
LIVE - the servers which provide the actual application
TEST - providing a testing version before it is actually released
DEV - the development servers
The development servers run SVN with each developer checking out their local copy. At the end of each day completed fixes are checked in and then we use Hudson to automate our build process and then transfer it over to TEST. We then check the application still functions correctly using a tester and then if everything is fine move it to LIVE. I am happy with this process but I do have two questions:
How would you recommend we do local testing - as each developer adds new pages or changes functionality I want them to be able to test what they are doing. Would you just setup local Apache and a local database and have them test locally on their own machine?
How would you recommend dealing with data layer changes?
Is there anything else you would recommend doing to really make our development process as easy and efficient as possible?
Thanks in advance
+1 to each developer running her own setup, complete with Apache and database.
Keep the database schema under version control.
Possibly you could keep (maybe in a separate repository) a small but representative set of data, in a test database. Each morning you check out the latest copy of this test database, and start hacking. When you change schemas, update your test data repository accordingly.
Anyone doing development SHOULD have their own local environment. I use Mac so I run MAMP so that I can have my own LAMP environment local and independent of any other environment. This will also allow me to know that nobody else is changing / working on the same components I am and removes any possible confusion. If you are a windows user, there are also easy to install local versions of the LAMP stack such as XAMP, etc. If you are running Linux as your desktop, you will most likely already know how to install LAMP for the flavor of Linux you are running.
The database schema version is a great idea. It is what we use as well. In addition to the schema under version control, we add a schema version table to the schema and keep it updated so we can quickly tell what version is in production/qa/dev when we need to compare.
As for the data layer changes there are two things I would recommend.
Always create your migration path, forward and backward. This means that when you have the schema you want to put on production to upgrade an existing schema, you should always make it part of the release. A clear concise process for ALTERing the tables. By the same token, you need to have a working and tested ROLLBACK version as well in case something goes wrong.
What I have found helpful is using a backup of production to load on my local (or QA/DEV) so that I have the most up-to-date data / schema to play with without affecting production. If you are not performing regular backups of production, maybe now is a good time to implement a policy. Then you will kill two birds with one stone. You will have backups for any outage and a useful live schema with data you can load to test with on another machine. This will also lend itself to raising any possible issues with schema changes as the data will be matching production. So if it works locally (and on DEV/QA), it reduces the risk of something going wrong in production.

Categories