Is it possible to run the post deployment scripts without deploying other changes? There are changes in the project that I don't want to deploy to the staging environment yet, but I do need to run the post deployment scripts to make sure seed data is inserted. Normally I could use schema compare for just deploying selected changes, but obviously I can't do that with the post deployment script.
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Basically what I have is my frontend (Vue) and my backend (Node.js and etc.). By following a guide, I've built the frontend for production using npm run build. I got a bunch of files in a build folder I setup within a previous step. These files were then moved to a folder in the backend. It works, but it's more a demo than anything else, and the frontend and backend will have to be modified more as I continue.
I'm just wondering if and when I edit the fronted more (let's say, when I add a new page) am I supposed to go through this process again? So I'll modify the front end folder, build that, move files, etc.
Thanks.
Yes, definitely.
If we are in a development environment, we use npm run dev or yarn run which upholds the development environment running and updates the browser whenever any modifications inside the code happen. We don't use any final build in the development environment because we make code modifications so repeatedly that it would be a sore process to make a build after every modification and check the results using that build.
But, the production is distinct from the development environment. We deploy the only code which is bug-free, entirely working, and ready for users to use. Deploying to production means all changes have been made, and the final code is ready to be deployed. So, we make a final production build and deploy it to our server.
So, don't panic to deploy to production every time you make a small change in the code. First, complete your all changes, and test the changes in the development environment, if everything is working correctly then only create a final production build, and deploy it to the server.**
I hope this helps.
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I want to design a wordpress development process like in following picture:
First I want to create a bitbucket repository for my Wordpress site. From this repository all our software developers should able to clone the site to their local machines for developing. For developing all developers should have one local database to test changes.
After a developer finished a task he should be able to push his changes to the repo. When a sprint is done I want to send all changes from the repo with Jenkins pipeline/job to the test environment. At this environment a tester should be able to test all new functions with a cloned database from the prod system (including the dev changes).
When all tests are successfully done I want be able to apply the database changes to the prod system (with a SQL script) and send all changes with an other Jekins pipeline/job to the prod system.
Do you think this can work? Whats with plugin updates? Can I setup environment variables for each system so the plugin updates can be just done on the dev machine?
I'm not sure if this could work because a plugin or plugin update creates a lot of new database changes and I think I need a tool who can display all changes like Sourcetree for git.
Is there someone who has expert knowledge with wordpress and this kind of development process and can share his experience with me?
Or do you think this process is not working with wordpress? If this is true it would be realy bad because I need a process like this.
Thanks a lot!
I don't really know Wordpress, but the process you describe is definitely possible (I've implemented similar solutions on Drupal and Adobe Experience Manager, for instance).
However...
It's hard.
In a CMS project, a change/new feature can include:
a code change (PHP, CSS, JavaScript)
a database structure change (e.g. a new table)
a database content change (e.g. a copy fix, or default/test content)
a configuration change
Working out which version should get what is really hard. You want a developer to commit a change, and have that change replicated on QA with test content - but once QA sign it off, you probably don't want to promote that test content to production. And config changes should probably flow between systems but with different values for each environment.
For managing the database changes, I've found a plug-in that monitors database changes; no idea how scriptable that is.
See WP Activity Log.
What I've done in the past in similar situations is write a script that creates the database definition for each change - so a developer can run that script, and commit it as part of their code change. It requires a lot of discipline, though - you can only modify the database structure by using the scripts.
The correct answer is yes you can do this. I know WordPress, Bit-bucket, GIT, SVN, Linux, Ubuntu exceptionally well. I have built a system very similar to what you describe and use it daily.
The problem stated is the CMS can get tricky. That is true, but you need to use the correct tools for the correct upgrades. So, WordPress ALREADY has versioning and revisions built into it. The DATABASE doesn't need to be involved at all
First off. The database doesn't need to be updated unless you are updating plugins. But for strict development no DB pushes are necessary. So have your developers check files in and out of Bit-bucket. When the lead developer approves the changes have him migrate / push to the MASTER BRANCH in your REPO. Inside of bit-bucket there is a tool called GIT HOOKS. You can trigger a php file on the server every time there is a push to the production branch. What the PHP file does is simply trigger the linux command GIT PULL which will update all the code on the server with what in on your PRODUCTION BRANCH. GIT PULL will also remove any files if files were removed etc. On the server you will have a "checked out" copy of the GIT repo and on linux the credentials after the first clone will be stored. Simply have your PHP file trigger a BASH script that does a GIT PULL. Done.
No matter how many developers you have there will always need to be a set of eyes that reviews the code changes and merges those into production. I.e. that is where the Lead Developer comes into play.
FYI. The only directories in your wordpress instance that needs to be in bitbucket is the THEME DIRECTORY and the PLUGINS directory. You DO NOT need to sync the entire WP install which is pretty large.
In the case that you would be building custom Plugins, again, it is just code that is stored in the plugins directory. If your custom plugins are built correctly and require the use of Databases then when they are activated they will immediately build the WP DB's that are needed. Likewise, correctly built plugin will also drop its own custom table when uninstalled.
You will need to sync the 2 below directories.
Plugins folder resides in: wp-content/plugins/
Themes Folder is wp-content/themes/SELECTED_THEME
Any additional questions just ask and I am here.
From my experience it is always better to allow each developer to have their own Branch and to setup the the Dev server a dedicated master branch for quality control. you can check out some documentation on how to set this up https://plixxer.com/docs/server-management/website-quality-control/
basically you want to have a live server and dev server. The live server should only ever pull from the REPO and and the Dev and coders can pull or Push from the repo. My team treats the dev server as a quality checking station. If the current live code is not up to our standards the entire dev is rolled back to what is live on the master branch. When code in the master succeeds our standards we pull from the master branch onto the live server. Each developer should have their own branch for testing on their local server. Let me know if you need some help on setting up a local environment with GIT.
You will want to make a distinction around "build" and another around "release". The workflow I understand is that developers call their local workstations "dev", and pull request their work to the develop branch (you may have already read through Gitflow). Then, using your choice of CI automation, you get the latest source into a build area and do that - build it. Check out Ansible. If you have BitBucket, maybe you also want to organize your sprint with the likes of Jira? Then you have pretty seemless integration of your sprint objectives with actual branches containing the relative work/source. Ansible can help you automate builds and releases to the point where you are doing daily builds, and running the unit tests across your builds in the various integration environments.
During builds, you would have different configuration files being factored in depending on the target environment. This is how to care for environment configuration. It is part of the build process, and ideally all configuration is possible through the build. For example, a connection string might be different across the environment if you are having different databases to isolate migration of schema changes. For example, in a Angular application you would execute ng b --prod to build production and this would bring in a production configuration file during build to change the connection string (for example).
More about configuration specific to environments... you can also include post deployment scripts that get deployed and executed after files are uploaded so that they will configure the environment as required.
Ask your questions below, and I will do my best to build this out into a comprehensive guide.
Should end to end tests be run at build time (running the application on the build server), or after deployment? I have not yet found a solid answer for which one is the standard.
Edit
I mean after deploying either to QA/SIT/UAT etc... vs. just running it on a build server without fully deploying it.
The whole point of having a build server is to create a single build of the current source code, of which you run tests and make sure that things work before you deploy them. I don't know why anyone would want to run tests after then have been deployed. What happens if you find a bug? You going to roll back the deployment? Always test before deployment.
Ideally, you would have a build environment that mimics your production environment that will allow you to run tests in a "deployed" environment. It's the reason that you have a development/staging/production servers.
While I only have a github repository that I'm pushing to (alone), I often forget to run tests, or forget to commit all relevant files, or rely on objects residing on my local machine. These result in build breaks, but they are only detected by Travis-CI after the erroneous commit. I know TeamCity has a pre-commit testing facility (which relies on the IDE in use), but my question is with regards to the current use of continuous integration as opposed to any one implementation. My question is
Why aren't changes tested on a clean build machine - such as those which Travis-CI uses for post-commit tesing - before those changes are committed?
Such a process would mean that there would never be build breaks, meaning that a fresh environment could pull any commit from the repository and be sure of its success; as such, I don't understand why CI isn't implemented using post-commit testing.
I preface my answer with the details that I am running on GitHub and Jenkins.
Why should a developer have to run all tests locally before committing. Especially in the Git paradigm that is not a requirement. What if, for instance, it takes 15-30 minutes to run all of the tests. Do you really want your developers or you personally sitting around waiting for the tests to run locally before your commit and push your changes?
Our process usually goes like this:
Make changes in local branch.
Run any new tests that you have created.
Commit changes to local branch.
Push local changes remotely to GitHub and create pull request.
Have build process pick up changes and run unit tests.
If tests fail, then fix them in local branch and push them locally.
Get changes code reviewed in pull request.
After approval and all checks have passed, push to master.
Rerun all unit tests.
Push artifact to repository.
Push changes to an environment (ie DEV, QA) and run any integration/functional tests that rely on a full environment.
If you have a cloud then you can push your changes to a new node and only after all environment tests pass reroute the VIP to the new node(s)
Repeat 11 until you have pushed through all pre-prod environments.
If you are practicing continuous deployment then push your changes all the way to PROD if all testing, checks, etc pass.
My point is that it is not a good use of a developers time to run tests locally impeding their progress when you can off-load that work onto a Continuous Integration server and be notified of issues that you need to fix later. Also, some tests simply can't be run until you commit them and deploy the artifact to an environment. If an environment is broken because you don't have a cloud and maybe you only have one server, then fix it locally and push the changes quickly to stabilize the environment.
You can run tests locally if you have to, but this should not be the norm.
As to the multiple developer issue, open source projects have been dealing with that for a long time now. They use forks in GitHub to allow contributors the chance to suggest new fixes and functionality, but this is not really that different from a developer on the team creating a local branch, pushing it remotely, and getting team buy-in via code review before pushing. If someone pushes changes that break your changes then you try to fix them yourself first and then ask for their help. You should be following the principle of "merging early and often" as well as merging in updates from master to your branch periodically.
The assumption that if you write code and it compiles and tests are passed locally, no builds could be broken is wrong. It is only so, if you are the only developer working on that code.
But let's say I change the interface you are using, my code will compile and pass tests
as long as I don't get your updated code That uses my interface.
Your code will compile and pass tests as long as you don't get my update in the interface.
And when we both check in our code, the build machine explodes...
So CI is a process which basically say: put your changes in as soon as possible
and test them in the CI server (it should be of course compiled and tested locally first).
If all developers follow those rules,
the build will still break, but we will know about it sooner rather than later.
The CI server is not the same as the version control system. The CI server, too, checks the code out of the repository. And therefore the code has already been committed when it gets tested on the CI server.
More extensive tests may be run periodically, rather than at time of checking in, on whatever is the current version of the code at the time of testing. Think of multi-platform tests or load tests.
Generally, of course, you'll unit test your code on your development machine before checking it in.
I've never worked on tremendously huge projects and the workflow we use at work is check-out/code/compile locally to test/commit. I was wondering how a build server would change this process. How do developer test their code when the application is too huge to compile locally? They just code, commit and pray?
Absolutely not.
The developer usually has a build file which can build the project for him or her, which has some "targets" defined which do the testing. If you have a really big project, you may have certain portions of it precompiled for you, so you don't have to build the whole thing in one big chunk. You usually do your testing locally before you commit to your repository. Breaking the build in big projects can mark you as an object of ridicule and scorn. Breaking the build in really important, really big projects can be career limiting... ;-)
The build SERVER itself doesn't change this. The build server only runs your build file and the targets you tell it to.
There are also build components (I've just started using TeamCity - no affiliation) that allow "personal builds".
I haven't used it yet as we haven't got it set up properly but my understanding is that TeamCity allows running a build (and tests if they are any run on the server) with your changes before committing (and optionally the server will commit your changes if the build is succesful). in TeamCity this is called a Pre-Tested Commit.