I'm building DMS (Document management system) using PHP framework Laravel.
One of the requirements is allowing users to version control files, close to what google docs does.
I've been searching for days without any clue, I don't want to re-impalement the wheel, there's a lot of really good VCS already including git which I'm thinking of utilizing it using php to implement the versioning features.
I just don't know how to start or even my way of thinking is valid!
What you need is real-time system (achieved via socket programming) so that everyone is updated about the contents in realtime; also who is doing what: Like if there are two users A and B and they have opened the same file then A should know what the B is doing and vice versa; you would use client events for that. Have a look here:
https://laracasts.com/series/get-real-with-laravel-echo
Or
Look into Web RTC: https://webrtc.org/
GIT is a different thing given your requirements what I understood.
I have multiple Virtual Machines (VMs). One of them is a PHP Server, the others are just normal machines. How can I let the PHP server manage the files. And how can I implement access control to that too. I want the client to be able to control the files through a webpage. Just like say, Dropbox. Also, how can I allow specific users to see certain files, and others not. Meaning, User1 owns a file and shares it with User2 but not User3.
You are basically asking for a whole application design which is out of scope on SO. However, I'd recommend to avoid creating this from scratch. Instead use an open-source solution which you can customize later on according to your needs
Have a look are Pydio (formerly known as AjaXplorer)
And here is a demo provided by them
My team has been working on a web application based on php, msql for backend and html,css,jquery for front end. We have been working for quite sometime now without version control. The project has become quite large and complicated now and feel that it is time to use some sort of version control ( vc ).
We have been reading quite a lot about vc and have found several techniques that people have suggested. although it might be a perfect method for them. it does not effectively apply to our case.
our application is split up into various modules and we have outsourced work to a few freelancers. freelancers work independently over front end or back end depending on their skill. The work has been happening over a Private Network so far and we would like to shift to an online system.
Now the problem is that we cannot distribute the source code for the entire project to all developers. developers are only allowed to work on some common libraries and their respective modules.
Hence we cannot allow the entire project to be downloaded onto each developers Local machine. Thus we need to find a way for all developers to be working on the same branch OR on the trunk. to be able to access only certain sections of the code and on saves/commits be able to check how their changes have effected instantly.
Is there a way the above task can be achieved ? for a web application ? using a version control like subversion?
To summarize, the features we are trying to implement are as follows.
Instant effects on save/commit ( When each developer saves/commits they should be able to test the effects like normal through the browser instantly )
Limited access ( Each developer can access only a specific part of the project and not the whole project. )
Online repository / Online copy - ( we are working on a VPN connection, and would like to have the website work on an online copy. so when a commit is made, the developer can view his changes online instead of the VPN )
after a lot of searching online we were able to find the below possibilities. But not sure if it is the right way to go.
For instant effects --> Entire system is checked out in a webroot folder ( eg. wamp/www/projectName ), a bat file is called to update the current system in the webroot, everytime a commit is made, by using the post-commit hook.
Limited access --> All development for all developers happen in the trunk OR a Development branch, developers can access their respective sections, lock it if needed and commit changes when they are ready to see its effects ( note still in dev branch ).
tags are created whenever a stable release is created. these Tagged copies are never modified.
Is such a configuration achievable using subversion or should we look at other open-source version control tools ?
Trying to prevent devs from accessing the entire source tree seems a bit misguided to me. Is it company politics? Don't you trust your developers?
In any case..
The easiest way to achieve what you want would probably be to put each module into its own repository (svn, git, whatever). Then you can selectively choose who has access to which repo.
Post-commit hook, which unconditionally "do site" is in a common not-so-good idea: developer can commit semi-finished code and even don't think about testing it
Make your Working Copy public, when site became public - not-so-good idea from the POV of security and IP. For SVN 1.7 to move WC-root outside web-root is much better idea
If modules are splitted to different directories, you can create repository per module and "super-repository", which, with svn:externals, combine repositories in Project
Path-access inside tree can be easy controlled (in http-repo) by authz_svn_module
Enable creating private personal short-time branches for developers ("shelves"), it helps to avoid (with 1) huge messed up commits
Firstly, I'd recommend reading the "Continuous Delivery" book (website here). It provides many examples for how to set up this kind of thing.
Secondly, yes, SVN allows you to assign permissions on a folder level as well as repo level (but read the "do you really want to do this" section).
Thirdly, making sure developers have up to date copies is something you should instill by discipline - "before starting work, and before committing, run svn update"). Post-commit hooks have a nasty habit of breaking stuff, and you're not preventing commits which break the build.
Fourthly, I'd consider setting up a continuous integration server (also described in the Continuous Delivery book). This makes sure you have a clean, working build whenever you put together the work of your developers.
I have developed an application and now I would like to hire some programmers to work on several pieces of it to upgrade and tweak it.
I have read other questions/answers here but they are mainly about obfuscating the code which is something I do not want to do (as I need them to read it and tweak it).
What I'm basically asking is, what is the best way to structure my code so I will have to expose only what I have to?
A good example for me is a webapp called RightNow which I'm developing for at work, what they do is they let you play around with all the widgets (you can create/edit/remove any widget) but the core of the application is in folders I do not have permissions to.
After you do your coding on the widgets, you then 'deploy' the application and it goes live. I have no idea what the deployment actually does behind the scenes, but this is one practice (not sure if it's the best) which allows the application owner to have control over the core of the code but still allow development for it.
Is there a better way? what do you think?
First you can use a version control software like SVN for example.
and then you can have copies of the code, one for testing and one for the your programmer. When the programmer is done changes and tweaks, the testing code gets updated first and when the test are done the live application gets updated.
you can obfuscate your core classes(ones that you don't want to expose). and other developers can include and use them at the same project as long as you provide a nice api to your classes.
From my experience, one of the bigger problems we come across during our webdevelopment process is keeping different setups updated and secure across different servers.
My company has it's own CMS which is currently installed across 100+ servers. At the moment, we use a hack-ish FTP-based approach, combined with upgrade scripts at specific locations to upgrade all of our CMS setups. Efficiently managing these setups becomes increasingly difficult and risky when there are several custom modules involved.
What is the best way to keep multiple setups of a web application secure and up-to-date?
How do you do it?
Are there any specific tips regarding modularity in applications, in order to maintain flexibility towards our clients, but still being able to efficiently manage multiple "branches" of an application?
Some contextual information: we mainly develop on the LAMP-stack. One of the main factors that helps us sell our CMS is that we can plugin pretty much anything our client wants. This can very from 10 to to 10.000 lines of custom code.
A lot of custom work consists of very small pieces of code; managing all these small pieces of code in Subversion seems quite tedious and inefficient to me (since we deliver around 2 websites every week, this would result in a lot of branches).
If there is something I am overlooking, I'd love to hear it from you.
Thanks in advance.
Roundup: first of all, thanks for all of your answers. All of these are really helpful.
I will most likely use a SVN-based approach, which makes benlumley's solution closest to what I will use. Since the answer to this question might differ in other usecases, I will accept the answer with the most votes at the end of the run.
Please examine the answers and vote for the ones that you think have the most added value.
I think using a version control system and "branching" the part of the codes that you have to modify could turn out to be the best approach in terms of robustness and efficiency.
A distributed version system could be best suited to your needs, since it would allow you to update your "core" features seamlessly on different "branches" while keeping some changes local if need be.
Edit: I'm pretty sure that keeping all that up to date with a distributed version system would be far less tedious than what you seem to expect : you can keep the changes you are sure you're never going to need elsewhere local, and the distributed aspect means each of your deployed application is actually independent from the others and only the fix you mean to propagate will propagate.
If customizing your application involves changing many little pieces of code, this may be a sign that your application's design is flawed. Your application should have a set of stable core code, extensibility points for custom libraries to plug into, the ability to change appearance using templates, and the ability to change behavior and install plugins using configuration files. In this way, you don't need a separate SVN branch for every client. Rather, keep the core code and extension plugin libraries in source control as normal. In another repository, create a folder for each client and keep all their templates and configuration files there.
For now, creating SVN branches may be the only solution that helps you keep your sanity. In your current state, it's almost inevitable that you'll make a mistake and mess up a client's site. At least with branches you are guaranteed to have a stable code base for each client. The only gotcha with SVN branches is if you move or rename a file in a branch, it's impossible to merge that change back down to the trunk (you'd have to do it manually).
Good luck!
EDIT: For an example of a well-designed application using all the principles I outlined above, see Magento E-Commerce. Magento is the most powerful, extensible and easy to customize web application I've worked with so far.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me what Aron is after is not version control. Versioning is great, and I'm sure they're using it already, but for managing updates on hundreds of customized installations, you need something else.
I'm thinking something along the lines of a purpose-built package system. You'll want every version of a module to keep track of its individual dependencies and 'guaranteed compatibilities', and use this information to automatically update only the 'safe' modules.
E.g. let's say you've built a new version 3 of your 'Wiki' module. You want to propagate the new version to all the servers running your application, but you've made changes to one of the interfaces within the Wiki module since version 2. Now, for all default installations, that is no problem, but it would break installations with custom extensions on top of the old interface. A well-planned package system would take care of this.
To address the security question, you should look into using digital signatures on your patches. There are lots of good libraries available for public-key-based signatures, so just go with whatever seems to be the standard for your chosen platform.
Not sure whether someone's said this, there are a lot of long responses here, and I've not read them all.
I think a better approach to your version control would be to have your CMS sat on its own in its own repository and each project in its own. (or, all of these could be subfolders within one repo i guess)
You can then use its trunk (or a specific branch/tag if you prefer) as an svn:external in each project that requires it. This way, any updates you make to the CMS can be committed back to its repository, and will be pulled into other projects as and when they are svn updated (or the external is svn:switch 'ed).
As part of making this easier, you will need to make sure the CMS and the custom functionality sit in different folders, so that svn externals works properly.
IE:
project
project/cms <-- cms here, via svn external
project/lib <-- custom bits here
project/www <-- folder to point apache/iis at
(you could have cms and lib under the www folder if needed)
This will let you branch/tag each project as you wish. You can also switch the svn:external location on a per branch/tag basis.
In terms of getting changes live, I'd suggest that you immediately get rid of ftp and use rsync or svn checkout/exports. Both work well, the choice is up to you.
I've got most experience with the rsync route, rsyncing an svn export to the server. If you go down this route, write some shell scripts, and you can create a test shell script to show you the files it will upload without uploading them as well, using the -n flag. I generally use a pair of scripts for each environment - one a test, and one to actually do it.
Shared key authentication so you don't need a password to send uploads up may also be useful, depending on how secure the server to be given the access is.
You could also maintain another shell script for doing bulk upgrades, which simply calls the relevant shell script for each project you want to upgrade.
Have you looked at Drupal? No, not to deploy and replace what you have, but to see how they handle customizations and site-specific modules?
Basically, there's a "sites" folder which has a directory for every site you're hosting. Within each folder is a separate settings.php which allows you to specify a different database. Finally, you can (optionally) have "themes" and "modules" folders within sites.
This allows you to do site-specific customizations of particular modules and limit certain modules to those sites. As a result, you end up with a site that the vast majority of everything is perfectly identical and only the differences get duplicated. Combine that with the way it handles upgrades and updates and you might have a viable model.
Build into the code a self-updating process.
It will check for updates and run them when/where/how you have configured it for the client.
You will have to create some sort of a list of modules (custom or not) that need to be tested with the new build prior to roll-out. When deploying an update you will have to ensure these are tested and integrated correctly. Hopefully your design can handle this.
Updates are ideally a few key steps.
a) Backup so you can back out. You should be able to back out
the entire update at any time. So,
that means creating a local archive
of the application and database
first.
b) Update Monitoring Process - Have the CMS system phone home to look for a new build.
c) Schedule Update on availability - Chances are you don't want the update to run the second it is available. This means you will have to create a cron/agent of some kind to do the system update automatically in the middle of the night. You can also consider client requirements to update on weekends, or on specific days. You can also stagger rolling out your updates so you don't update 1000 clients in 1 day and get tech support hell. Staggered roll-out of some kind might be beneficial for you.
d) Add maintenance mode to update the site -- Kick the site into maintenance mode.
e) SVN checkout or downloadable packages -- ideally you can deploy via svn checkout, and if not, setup your server to deliver svn generated packages into an archive that can be deployed on client sites.
f) Deploy DB Scripts - Backup the databases, update them, populate them
g) Update site code - All this work for one step.
h) Run some tests on it. If your code has self-tests built in, it would be ideal.
Here's what I do...
Client-specific include path
Shared, common code is in shared/current_version/lib/
Site specific code is in clients/foo.com/lib
The include path is set to include from the clients/foo.com/lib, and then share/lib
The whole thing is in a version control system
This ensures that the code uses shared files wherever possible, but if I need to override a particular class or file for some reason, I can write a client specific version in their folder.
Alias common files
My virtual host configuration will contain a line like
Alias /common <path>/shared/current_version/public_html/common
Which allows common UI elements, icons, etc to be shared across projects
Tag the common code with each site release
After each site release, I tag the common code by creating a branch to effectively freeze that point in time. This allows me to deploy /shared/version_xyz/ to the live server. Then I can have a virtual host use a particular version of the common files, or leave it pointing at the current_version if I want it to pick up the latest updates.
Have you looked at tools such as Puppet (for system administration incl. app deployment) or Capistrano (deployment of apps in RubyOnRails but not limited to these)?
One option would be to set up a read-only version control system (Subversion). You could integrate access to the repository into your CMS and invoke the updates through a menu, or automatically if you do not want the user to have a choice about an update (could be critical). Using a version control system would also allow you to keep different branches easily
As people have already mentioned that using version control (I prefer Subversion due to functionality) and branching would be the best option. Another open source software available on sourceforge called cruisecontrol. Its amazing, you configure cruisecontrol with subversion in sach a way that any code modification or new code added in serversion, Cruise control will know automatically and will do build for you. It will save your hell of time.
I have done the same way in my company. we have four projects and have to deploy that project on different servers. I have setup cruiseconrol in such a way that any modification in code base triggers automatic build. and another script will deploy that build on the server. your are good to go.
If you use a LAMP stack I would definitely turn the solutions files into a package of your distribution and use it for propagate changes. I recommend for that matter Redhat/Fedora because of RPM and it's what I have experience on. Anyway you can use any Debian based distribution too.
Sometime ago I made a LAMP solution for managing an ISP hosting servers. They had multiple servers to take care of web hosting and I needed a way to deploy the changes of my manager, because every machine was self-contained and had a online manager. I made a RPM package containing the solution files (php mostly) and some deploying scripts that runned with the RPM.
For automated updating we had our own RPM repository set on every server in yum.conf. I set an crontab job to update the servers daily with the latest RPMs from that trusted repository.
Trustiness can be achieve too because you can use trust settings in the RPM packages, like signing them with your public key file and accepting only signed packages.
Hm could it be an idea to add configuration files? You wrote that a lot of small script are doing something. Now if you'd build them into the sources and steered them with configuration files shouldn't that "ease" that?
On the other hand having branches for every customer looks like an exponential growth to me. And how would you "know" which areas you've done something and do not forget to "make" changes in all other branches also. That looks quite ugly to me.
It seems a combination of revision controls, configuration options and/or deployment receipts seems to be a "good" idea.....
With that many variations on your core software, I think you really need a version control system to stay on top of pushing updates from the trunk to the individual client sites.
So if you think Subversion would be tedious, you've got a good sense for what the pain points will be... Personally, I wouldn't recommend Subversion for this, since it's not really that good at managing & tracking branches. Although benlumley's suggestion to use externals for your core software is a good one, this breaks down if you need to tweak the core code for your client sites.
Look into Git for version control, it's built for branching, and it's fast.
Check out Capistrano for managing your deployments. It's a ruby script, often used with Rails, but it can be used for all sorts of file management on remote servers, even non-ruby sites. It can get the content to the remote end through various stragegies including ftp, scp, rsync, as well as automatically checking out the latest version from your repository. The nice features it provides include callback hooks for every step of the deploy process (e.g. so you can copy your site-specific configuration files which might not be in version control), and a release log system--done through symlinks--so you can quickly roll back to a previous release in case of trouble.
I'd recommend a config file with the list of branches and their hosted location, then run through that with a script that checks out each branch in turn and uploads the latest changes. This could be cron'd to do nightly updates automatically.