(Another) Wordpress Deployment Strategy

This is a simple command-line deployment tool for Wordpress using Python Fabric (more or less a simple wrapper around SSH and bash). This tool uses ideomatic Fabric and is extremely light-weight. Python is not required to be installed on target environments.

At the moment this tool only depends on Git and Interconnectit's Search Replace DB CLI for database copying operations (optional, only required for the db_copy task). Otherwise, unlike Capistrano, you don't have to install anything on your servers.

In conjunction with Git and WP CLI, this tool can be used to easily automate most Wordpress related taskes, including databse migration and pushing plugin updates.

Assumptions

• Using My Fork of Mark Jaquith's excellent Wordpress-Skeleton (diff here)
• Using git for version control

Getting Started

These instructions assume that you will be deploying to a local server. If you don't want to do this, you can install directly onto staging just as well.

1. Clone my fork of Wordpress Skeleton into your working directory. Be sure to use the --recursive flag to grab Wordpress as well.
2. Reset origin to your own git server: git remote set-url origin your-git-url-here.git (should be a bare git repository).
3. Copy .gitignore, fabfile.py, config.py and local_config_sample.py from this repository to your working directory
4. Install Search Replace DB CLI 2.2 somewhere outside of your web root on all target environments (such as ~/.srdb).
5. Enter your data into config.py and local_config_sample.py
6. Rename local_config_sample.py to local_config.py
7. Commit and push your changes.
8. Run fab local setup, then fab local deploy (If you are working with a symlink, just run fab local db_create).
9. Navigate to your local Wordpress URL and install the database.
10. You can now run fab staging setup and fab staging db_copy:local,options_table=yes to setup your staging environment.

Symlinks

If your local deployment directory is a symlink to your working directly, please set local_config.deploy to False. This will stop the deploy task from running. This task usually runs git reset --hard HEAD and will destroy your changes otherwise.

Usage

fab [local|staging|production] [<task>]:[<arguments>]

Tasks

setup

Prepares the target host for a Wordpress deployment. Clones the repository and creates the database on the target host.

db_create

Creates the database on the target host if it does not exist. Used by setup.

deploy:[<branch>|branch=<branch>|tag=<tag>|<commit=<hash>][,submodules=no|yes]

Deploys the given branch/tag/commit to the target host. Performs search and replace on wp-config.php. If the submodules argument is given, updates submodules as well (default is no for performance). Please note that this command uses git reset --hard HEAD and will destroy changes in the working directory.

db_copy:[local|staging|production][,options_table=no|yes]

Executes db_backup then copies the database from the given host to the target host. Executes db_update and deploy in-place afterwards. If options_table=yes is given, will copy the wp_options table as well. Please note that copying the options table may lead to theme corruption.

db_update:[local|staging|production]

Uses Search Replace DB CLI 2.2 to change Wordpress-specific settings (like site_url and wp_home) in the database from the given host to the target host. Executed by db_copy after copying the database. You won't usually need to run this explicitly.

db_backup:[<filename>]

Performs database backup on the target host. Executes tidy_backups afterwards. If filename is given, create file which will be ignored by tidy_backups.

tidy_backups

Removes files starting with config.backup_filename over the limit set in config.backup_count on the target host. You won't usually need to run this explicitly.

db_restore

Restore most recent auto-generated backup. This command will overwrite the current database.

Examples

fab staging setup

Setup Wordpress for deployment on staging.

fab production deploy:master,submodules=yes

Deploys the master branch to your production environment. Also updates submodules.

fab staging deploy:tag=1.0.1

Deploys tag 1.0.1 to your staging environment.

fab local deploy:commit=82904baffde6ab7e62829514d662db463f7da6c4

Deploys commit 82904baffde6ab7e62829514d662db463f7da6c4 to your local environment

fab local db_copy:staging,options_table=yes

Copies the database, including the wp_options table, to your local environment from your staging environment.

fab staging db_backup:my-backup

Create a backup of the database on staging with the filename my-backup. This file will be ignored by tidy_backups.

cd wp
wp plugin update --all
cd ../
git add -A
git commit -m 'Updating plugins'
git push origin master
fab staging deploy:master

Deploying plugin updates with the Wordpress Command-Line-Interface. Note that WP-CLI onyl works in the wordpress submodule.

cd wp
git fetch --tags
git checkout 3.9
cd ../
git add wp
git commit -m 'Updating Wordpress to 3.9'
git push origin master
fab production deploy:master,submodules=yes

Deploying updates to Wordpress.

Troubleshooting

Most commands quiet fabric's default verbose output by default. If you are having any issues, run fab --show=debug [<your command>] to see exactly what is happening.

Issues and pull requests are always welcome.