How does CakePHP use the 'hash' field/column in User? - authentication

I have a CakePHP 2.3 app with a MySQL database.
I'm building a new app (in a different language and framework).
The plan is to completely replace the CakePHP app with the new one. The code is almost ready, so I've just attempted to run it in production for the first time.
User login seems to have crashed in production because the field hash in the users table was changed to old_hash. I did this because the new framework can't have fields with the name hash.
Testing in development, this was not a problem at all.
In production it became a problem.
Development:
App in Vagrant VM and database in my machine's local MySQL
(MySQL 5.7)
Production:
App in AWS EC2 and database in AWS RDS
(MySQL 5.6)
Because all users have the hash column blank, I assumed it didn't matter.
The fact that it worked locally after changing it to old_hash led me to worry even less about it.
I've searched for documentation on this specifically, but did not find anything detailed enough.
What does CakePHP use the hash field/column in the users table for?
Is there a place in the code where I can explicitly tell it to look for something named old_hash instead?
What could be influencing the difference in behaviors between development and production?
Figuring all of this out would be awesome, because then my 2 apps would be able to briefly coexist in production, making the transition smoother.

Related

Deploy Typo3 database changes

I wonder if there is a good way of deploying database changes made on a typo3 website (on dev) to a live website?
In Magento for example there are folders containg sql install statements (for the structure, new tables etc.) and data install scripts (inserting data into the tables).
These scripts are automatically executed when deployed to live.
Good ways of getting rid of manual database adaptions are welcome.
Thanks!

cweiske explained it well, for common admin it's enough to know that Install Tool has Database Analyser > Compare functionality, which is dedicated for handling DB schema differences.

TYPO3 extensions have their ext_tables.sql files which define the database structure they need.
When installing the extension, the necessary database structure changes are made by the TYPO3 extension manager. You can also apply the changes yourself by using the install tool -> database update.
So as long as your extensions have the correct table definitions, you're fine and can rely on TYPO3 to update the actual database.

Rails 3 and Git: two applications, shared database

I have two Rails 3 applications that will share portions of the same database through an internally developed gem. This is an internal project where we will always have full control over both applications. One application is bare metal administration (dev facing, potentially unstable) and another is the content publishing system (user facing, production). Its not practical nor desirable to meld the applications.
I've already seen Rails - Shared Database Tables between two apps
My proposed solution is to git submodule and share the /db directory of both applications.
I want to know if this is a valid approach, and if so are there any pitfalls I'm setting myself up for? If this isn't valid what is a good alternative? (The goal here is to remain as simple as possible, no interprocess APIs.)

I have used this approach and it does work. If you are using capistrano for deployment enable submodule deployment like this
set :git_enable_submodules, 1
You have to be careful not to forget to sync the /db folder, before you start creating migrations, they are created with a timestamp and you can end up with the wrong sequence of migrations.

How to set up a stageing-enviorment for wordpress/wordpress mu?

I have a wordpress mu-site. I need to set up a test-version of it so that the client can run test on the changes we make, test the plugins with new updates etc.
Anybody who has worked with wordpress know it's a bit off a hassle to move between servers and/or domain-names, due to the absolute paths used. Does anybody have a good solution how to create a stage-enviorment of wordpress?

Here's how I do it + some adjustments I want to make:
Two WP installs on identical environments - dev & production
They each have their own FQDN
Version control (SVN in this case) to handle merges from dev to production
When merging, I don't ever merge database changes. I only merge code, and modify any of the domain specific things during the merge (which really should only be in the DB.)
Recreate any DB changes needed during deployment
There are other ways to do it, but they often require changing the hosts file or access to internal systems. So if you want to be able to show an external client a site, then those methods aren't likely to work.
I also sometimes copy the DB back from production to dev, and just do a find & replace for the FQDN.
You can also dev locally and use the above listed method for staging only.

How to set up a Staging Environment for Existing Sites? Esp. using subdomains?

I have about 5 sites where till date all development changes have happened directly on the live server, where the change would be made on a test file first and if ok, would replace it with the original file.
However, I can't really continue with this approach now because the site has become quite complex and testing changes usually involves changes to DB as well. I will also be having some outsourced developers working on the site. So now need to figure out how to set up an environment such that the dev. team can make changes to a test environment running perhaps on the same server, as a subdomain on the main domain perhaps, but not sure how to go about it.
Our sites are hosted on a single dedicated server with WHM/Cpanel setup. Now,
a) how do I go about creating a staging environment where they have access to the latest files and a db copy of the live db?
b) how do I track what all files they've changed/updated, so that I can then copy them to the live server and upload?
Is there some other approach I can/should consider? Am not really sure how to go about this.

Issues with DB after publishing via Database Publishing Wizard from MSFT

I work on quite a few DotNetNuke sites, and occasionally (I haven't figured out the common factor yet), when I use the Database Publishing Wizard from Microsoft to create scripts for the site I've created on my Dev server, after running the scripts at the host (usually GoDaddy.com), and uploading the site files, I get an error... I'm 99.9% sure that it's not file related, so not sure where to begin in the DB. Unfortunately with DotNetNuke you don't get the YSOD, but a generic error, with no real way to find the actual exception that has occured.
I'm just curious if anyone has had similar deployment issues using the Database Publishing Wizard, and if so, how they overcame them? I own the RedGate toolset, but some hosts like GoDaddy don't allow you to direct connect to their servers...

The Database Publishing Wizard's generated scripts usually need to be tweaked since it sometimes gets the order wrong of table/procedure creation when dealing with constraints. What I do is first backup the database, then run the script, and if I get an error, I move that query to the end of the script. Continue restoring the database and running the script until it works.

There are two areas that I would look at -
Are you running in the dbo schema and was your scripted database
using dbo?
Are you using an objectqualifier in either your dev or your
production environment? (look at your sqldataprovider configuration
settings)

You should be able to expose the underlying error message by setting the following in the web.config:
customErrors mode="Off"
Could you elaborate on "and uploading the site files"? New instance of DNN? updating an existing site? upgrading DNN version? If upgrade or update -- what files are you adding/overwriting?
Also, when using GoDaddy, can you check to verify that the web site's identity (network service or asp.net machine account depending on your IIS version) has sufficient permissions to the website's file system? It should have modify permissions and these may need to be reapplied if you are overwriting files.
IIS6 (XP, Server 2000, 2003) = ASP.Net Machine Account
IIS7 (Vista, Server 2008) = Network Service

Test your generated scripts on a new local database (using the free SQL Express product or the full meal deal). If it runs fine locally, then you can be confident that it will run elsewhere, all things being equal.
If it bombs when you run it locally, use the process of elimination and work your way through the script execution to find the offending code.
My hunch is that the order of scripts could be off. I think I've had that happen before with the database publishing wizard.

Just read your follow up. In every case that I've had your problem, it was always something to do with the connection string in web.config. Even after hours of staring at it, it was always a connection string issue in web.config. Get up, take a walk and then come back.

If you are getting one of DNN's error pages, there is a chance it may have logged the error to the eventlog table.

Depending on exactly what is happening and what DNN is showing you you might be able to manually look inside the EventLog table, pull out the XML data stored there, and parse it to find the stack trace and detailed information regarding the specific error at hand.
I have found however though that I get MUCH better overall experiences with deployments using backups and restores of my database, that way I am 100% sure that all objects moved correctly, and honestly it works better in my experience.
With GoDaddy I know another MAJOR common issue is incorrect file permissions, preventing DNN from modifying the web.config and other files that it needs to do.