I am trying to deploy my first Laravel App. So I hope I am providing all the necessary info. I have walked down several paths trying to deploy this app. I tried a shared hosting account, but found too many errors to continue deploying my Laravel app. In the meantime, someone has said to me I need a VPS, so I may go with that.
So with a new VPS, I now am trying to install the following: phpMyAdmin, node.js, Composer, and Laravel 4. These are the technologies I am using on my local server with MAMP. Now after being overwhelmed with the information on installing each on a VPS, I have found myself extremely confused. Some places say I need to install Ubuntu. Some say I need to install Apache first. Some talk about using CentOS. I honestly have no idea what I need to install, and in what order. All I really need is to figure out how to set up a PHP environment on my VPS with phpMyAdmin, Node.js, and Composer. After that I am pretty sure it's all straight forward, as far as installing my app.
I also saw some one talking about committing my app to Git, and the cloning it to the VPS. If I did this, I would still need to set up the environment correct? Once again, I hope I have provided the necessary information. If my question is not clear, could you please refer me to a resource that I can study.
You don't need install Laravel separately from the app it is part of - these days a PHP app just contains everything it needs in its vendor folder. How to deploy depends on how you have arranged your dependencies locally, but the simplest way is to copy everything in your local project to your remote server (FTP or rsync). I don't think Laravel demands a VPS, but if you are using Node as well, then yes you will.
So, the short answer is: if it works locally, copy it up to the remote host, and it should work there. Make sure you've set up your config system in your app so that it can cope with the different settings you need in local/remote environments, such as database connection settings.
My feeling is that a shared host would be easier for you as a beginner - is the Node.js component of your app critical? Running your own VPS is not difficult, but there is quite a bit to learn. Your distro (such as Ubuntu) would be ready-installed, and on top of that you would use the package system (something like apt-get) to install Apache, PHP, PHP modules, phpMyAdmin, git, and whatever else you need.
Yes, you can certainly deploy using Git. One way to do this is to create bare repositories on your server in a private place, set it up as a remote in your local dev machine, and push to it as your off-site copy. Then, from your dev or production web folders, pull and update submodules. This is not trivial, and requires at least a working knowledge of Git - so presently I wouldn't recommend this route.
Related
At the moment I am using poor method to work at home and at work to do web development.
I use Wamp for testing/development and then I upload to a production web server (Linux) via FTP.
If I continue with the project at home, I have to download the files from FTP.
What is good method to work on same projects at multiple locations?
Someone suggest me to learn Git and get Github private account. Also suggested to get Vagrant installed at work and home. Do I need to install Git in Vagrant VM or local machine?
Learn git: http://try.github.io
Create a Vagrant/VrtualBox VM by following the directions at https://puphpet.com
One of the tricks here is to put the Vagrant stuff you get from Puphpet directly in your project and then commit all of it to git. You'll then be able to check out the project in a new environment and, as long as Vagrant and VirtualBox are installed, you can run vagrant up and be working in about 5 mins.
Here's an example of how I'm doing just that to allow people to easily try out a library I've written: https://github.com/jeremykendall/query-auth-impl.
Enjoy! Your life as a developer is about to get a lot easier and a whole lot better.
Github or Bitbucket. Git or Mercurial, and also Svn if it's just for yourself and you want an easier learning curve.
Any source control system would be ideal for this.
You don't want your production server to be the source of truth for the actual code. Those two concerns should definitely be separated. The production application is the output of the code, not the code itself. For a language like PHP the two may be identical, but the concerns themselves should still be separated. Indeed, for small systems the two services may even be hosted on the same server, but should still be logically separated.
The source control system maintains the changes made to the code over time, the production server is a snapshot of the current release version of the code.
We are two in a team working on the same project. i am on MAC and the other one is on PC. i have never used SVN before. googling about the SVN gave me basic understanding about svn. and what i understood is there should be subversion installed in client machine (i do not know which client, i assume there are many like versions and cornerstone for mac, tortoise for windows etc. and i require a repository where i will host the centralized version of the application. the client will get the copy of codes or files where they can commit the changes to repository (main application). which can be undone if required. however what i don't understand is, as our PHP code uses database(mysql in my case) how is it managed by SVN client?
lastly i expect my development environment to be implemented the following way.
i want to set up my mac as development server for SVN at the same
time i would like to work in the same machine making use of SVN.
PC should access the repository from MAC and commit the changes.
all the setup should be done and implemented locally via LAN. please correct me if i am wrong on my understanding about the svn and also do guide me about the requirements and resources i need to install in both the machine for me to get going using SVN for my projects.
thank you..
You can use your Mac both for hosting your SVN repository and also use it as the client to checkout your working copy. Have a look at this link (its slightly old but you'll get the gist).
Once you have the SVN repository setup you can enable HTTP access on it so that your partner can checkout the copy and commit changes to it. Have a look here on how to enable HTTP access for your repository.
Most modern day PHP Frameworks use migrations scripts that help in building and maintaining your database schema, if possible use a framework. Have a look at the migrations script of one of the frameworks for inspiration (i.e if you can't use a framework). Migration scripts under the hood fire create table or alter table commands, and all you do is add the migration files to your SVN repository to version control your database schema.
One caveat with hosting the SVN repository on your Mac is that for some reason if its down, your partner gets stuck as code changes can't be committed and new changes can't be checked out. Have a look at this thread for free online private SVN repositories. In case you want to go the paid route GitHub.com is awesome.
I develop on my own and use a repository hosted on http://www.springloops.com. On here I just export the database to a text file and keep historic changes to the database on there. Clearly this is not suitable for a team working together on a project unless you're well coordinated in recording your database changes.
This question looks useful MySQL Version Control - Subversion though it's specific to mysql subversioning - not quite the answer to your broader question.
Each machine should have the relevant Client software, I recommend Tortoise SVN for Windows - it's pretty popular. There is bound to be a similar alternative SVN Client for OSX that you can get your hands on.
I have a ubuntu machine I have setup. I installed apache2 and php5 on it. I can access the web server from other machines on the network via http://linux-server. I have subversion installed on it. I also have vsftpd installed on it so I can ftp to it from another computer on the network.
Myself and other users currently use dreamweaver to checkin-checkout files directly from our live site to make changes.
I want the connect to the linux server from pc. make the changes on the test server until ready and then pushed to the live site. I want to use subversion also into this workflow as well. but not sure what the best workflow is or how to set this up.
I have no experience with linux, svn, or even using a test server, the checkin/out we are currently doing is the way I have always done it.
I have hit many snags already just getting what I have setup because of my lack of knowledge in the area. Dreamweaver 5 has integration with subversion but I can't figure out how to get it to work.
I want to setup and create the best workflow possible.
I dont expect anyone to be able to give me an answer that will enlighten me enough to know everthing I need to know to do what I want to do (altough if possible that would be great) instead I am looking for maybe a knowledge path like answer. Like a general outline of what I need to do accompanied with links to learn how to do it. like read this book to learn linux, then read this article to learn svn, etc., then you should know what to do. I would be happy just getting it all setup, but I would like to know what I am actually doing while setting it up too.
I'm sure you've solved your issue by now, but for future reference to other users, here's the steps I would suggest to get started:
Create a repository for your project (in Ubuntu)
Host the SVN repo using Apache
I'd read up on the subversion book to look at some strategies for development with SVN.
To connect to your SVN machine, you'll need to use it's IP or hostname instead of your svn live site you mentioned. With proper forwarding, it's easy to access it from anywhere.
So we are pushing to create good processes in our office. I work in a web shop that has been doing web sites for over a decade. And we don't use version control. I know! It's bad, not my fault. I'm the guy with a SoftE background pushing for this at a minimum.
The tech lead has been looking into it. We all use Mac workstations and mostly use Coda for editing since it is a great IDE. It has SVN support built in but expects it to work on local files. We're trying to explore mounting the web directory as a local network drive with an SFTP tool.
We are a LAMP shop, BTW.
I am wondering what the model is here. I think we have typically would checkout the whole site to our local machine where we have apache running and then test it there? This isn't how we work yet, we do everything on the server. We've looked at checking things in and out, but some files are owned by apache and the ownerships change when I check them in, because I'm not apache.
I just want to know a way to do this that works given my circumstances. Would be nice to not have to run apache locally.
You might want to checkout the Coda mailing list and ask there. Lots of Coda enthusiasts there with specific experience.
If you don't want to have to run locally could make Apache on your server run a copy of the site for every developer, on a different port per person, and then mount those web-roots to the local macs and make that the working directory. If you're a small shop that's not hard to manage. I find that pretty easy to set up and saves a lot of resources on the local machines. The one-site-per-person helps to avoid conflicts with multiple people working on files at the same time.
What I'd additionally recommend is to have a script that gets the latest changes from SVN and deploys the entire site to the production server when you're ready. You could have that script change permissions on appropriate files/folders as needed to be owned by Apache. The idea once you're using source control is to never manually edit the production files -- you should have something that deploys it from SVN for you.
A few notes:
Take a look at MacFuse / MacFusion (the latter is the application, the former is the library behind it) to mount remote directories via SSH / FTP as local ones.
Allow your developers to check out into their local environment (with their own LAMP stack if they're savvy), or look into a shared dev environment with individual jails. This way your developers can run their own LAMP stack (which you could deploy for them on the machine) without interfering with others.
The idea being, let them use a workflow that works best for them, to minimize the pain in adapting to this change (if change management might be an issue!)
Just as an example, we have a shared dev server where jails are created with a single command for new developers. They have a full LAMP stack ready to go, and we can upgrade and re-deploy jails easily to keep software up to date. Developers have individual control to add custom settings / extensions if they need it for work, while the sys admins have the ability to reset everything when someone accidently breaks their environment :)
Those who prefer not to use jails, and are able to, manage their own local environments (typically through Macports or MAMP).
I've read a number of topics in the same sort of ballpark as this one, but in all honesty I'm still not exactly sure on the best approach (as a starting point). I am a solo developer in a small office and I have around 30 websites which are hosted on a linux VPS. I want to start using using version control (probably SVN) and also set up a staging server. At the moment, I do development either locally on my machine before using FTP to upload to the live server, or ocassionally for small changes I edit the remote files directly, which is not an ideal approach.
I'm looking for some guidance on how to improve my development environment. I imagine I should be installing SVN on the web server, which would then allow me to check out versions to my local machine (which would also require SVN i think). Also, if I want to set up a staging server, should I just set up subdomains for each of the live websites, then use these subdomains for showing clients changes to the site before making them live?
Hope this makes sense!
This is what we do at work:
We have a staging server running Apache and a Subversion server. We have a post commit hook that updates a working copy in the htdocs directory, that way, when a developer commits something it automatically gets updated on the staging server, so everyone can see the latest code.
On the client's production servers (the ones we can control) we have the Subversion client installed and the website is a working copy. When we need to update the live site we login to a shell and run svn up. If you do something like this, make sure to limit access to the .svn directories, either with .htaccess files or from the main Apache config.
We have a custom app that manages the projects, but that is only because we're lazy and don't want to setup each project by hand, the app creates the necessary directories and working copies. You could write a quick script to do this.
We never, ever, edit files via FTP on the live site. All in all we have been using this setup for almost 2 years and aside from the occasional conflict on the staging server, we never have had any problems.
You can actually install the SVN server on your local machine, which I would recommend in lieu of installing it on the web server (assuming you make backups). The easiest thing to do, since it’s only you using it, would be to use the file:// protocol, but using svnserve is a little more robust, and the preferred method if you want to take the time to do it.
#Michael, I disagree - I would say it's better to install on the linux vps, especially if you are already paying for the hosting service. I find it very helpful to be able to browse and download stuff from my svn repo wherever I am, from whatever computer I'm on.
#nicky, I started with svn (and version control) several years ago and I took baby steps which made it easier to tackle.
If I had to do it over again, I'd read the svn book to start with. The book is very well laid out and didn't take more than 1-2 days to plow thru.
While you're reading, install svn on your linux vps with an apache front end.
Once you have that up, pick one of your websites and import it into svn. This is how I structure my svn repo. For example, say my repo is hosted at http://mysvn.mydomain.com/svn/:
mywebsite1
- trunk
- tags
- branches
mywebsite2
- trunk
- tags
- branches
Don't worry about creating the perfect structure. It's pretty easy to re-organize especially when you're starting out. After you import a few projects into svn, you'll start to get a feel for which projects should have their own "trunk/tags/branches" dir structure and which can be combined.
For creating test environments, I do exactly what you describe. I use build scripts to checkout from svn and download files into dirs that are mapped to subdomains like "test.clientsite.com" (I work primarily in java and use ant and maven, but I think you can use whatever scripting language you're familiar with).
Once you get used to version control, you'll never go back, good luck!