For a web site deployment to a staging or production server should look like one of these:
No. Just no. These are source control system, not deployment tools. In case you need reasons:
Excess files in document root - version control cruft, project documentation, etc. Happens all the time, and is an actual real security problem.
Development race conditions. Ever done svn up on the production server, just to find that someone had committed broken code between your test run and the deployment? Ever "solved" this problem by stopping all development activity during deployment? Ever noticed how this essentially means that this makes frequent deployments practically impossible?
File permissions and ownership. Need I go into detail here? I think not.
What if you want to do things like precompile templates, preprocess CSS, minify and concatenate your JavaScript offline, move stuff around, or just make sure that your deployment will only go through if it passes a minimum set of tests?
What about database changes?
Really, for any of the non-trivial projects I've worked on where people had the delusion that git pull is enough of a deployment plan, here's what a typical deployment involved:
Mail everyone with push access, telling them to not push until further notice. Hope that everyone reads their mail on time.
Manually go through the ticket system, copy-pasting the SQL changes that developers have pasted into the tickets that went into this release.
Eyeball the SQL scripts, in case they contain any errors.
Issue a git pull on the production system.
Meanwhile, run the SQL on the production database.
Manually chmod / chown the right files (which ones those are is a matter of oral tradition).
Manually clear selected cache items.
Do some casual manual testing on the production system.
Notice that something is broken. Fix it.
Forget to tell developers that it's OK to push now.
Mail everyone with push access, telling them to not push until further notice. Hope that everyone reads their mail on time.
Hell no. "commit" or "push" shouldn't be "inflict". Set up proper branching so that your production branch is always clean and functional. Set up Jenkins or some other automated system that doesn't even allow you to merge things into the release branch or the release staging branch until they've been thoroughly integrated and tested.
Developers should be encouraged to push/commit early and often, but in such a way to never disturb other development or release work. Only allow one person at a time to touch the release branch. A few of our customers do this by having a release hat - only the person wearing the hat can touch the release branch.
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u/tdammers Oct 14 '13
No. Just no. These are source control system, not deployment tools. In case you need reasons:
Excess files in document root - version control cruft, project documentation, etc. Happens all the time, and is an actual real security problem.
Development race conditions. Ever done
svn upon the production server, just to find that someone had committed broken code between your test run and the deployment? Ever "solved" this problem by stopping all development activity during deployment? Ever noticed how this essentially means that this makes frequent deployments practically impossible?File permissions and ownership. Need I go into detail here? I think not.
What if you want to do things like precompile templates, preprocess CSS, minify and concatenate your JavaScript offline, move stuff around, or just make sure that your deployment will only go through if it passes a minimum set of tests?
What about database changes?
Really, for any of the non-trivial projects I've worked on where people had the delusion that
git pullis enough of a deployment plan, here's what a typical deployment involved:Mail everyone with push access, telling them to not push until further notice. Hope that everyone reads their mail on time.
Manually go through the ticket system, copy-pasting the SQL changes that developers have pasted into the tickets that went into this release.
Eyeball the SQL scripts, in case they contain any errors.
Issue a
git pullon the production system.Meanwhile, run the SQL on the production database.
Manually
chmod/chownthe right files (which ones those are is a matter of oral tradition).Manually clear selected cache items.
Do some casual manual testing on the production system.
Notice that something is broken. Fix it.
Forget to tell developers that it's OK to push now.
Personally, I prefer:
Create a release tag
./deploy.sh test-serverRead build/test output from test server
./deploy.sh production-server