Automated Deployment for PHP Projects: Continuous Delivery with Deployer

Introduction to Deployer

As software systems grow in complexity, more development teams are turning to continuous delivery and automated deployment to streamline their release processes. In PHP projects, using the right deployment tool can drastically reduce manual errors and increase deployment efficiency. Deployer is an open-source deployment tool written in PHP, designed to handle deployment tasks quickly and reliably.

Installing Deployer

You can easily install Deployer using Composer. Run the following command in your project's root directory:

<span class="fun">composer require deployer/deployer --dev</span>

After installation, a deploy.php configuration file will be generated in the root directory of your project.

Basic Configuration Example

Open the deploy.php file and set up the deployment process as needed. Here's a basic configuration example:

namespace Deployer;

require 'recipe/common.php';

// Server configuration
server('production', 'your_server_ip')
    ->user('your_username')
    ->password('your_password')
    ->set('deploy_path', '/var/www/html');

// Project configuration
set('repository', 'git@github.com:your_username/your_repo.git');
set('keep_releases', 3);

Make sure to replace placeholders like your_server_ip, your_username, and your_password with your actual server details.

Adding Custom Tasks

Deployer allows you to define custom tasks to meet specific deployment requirements. Here's an example of how to create and register a custom task:

namespace Deployer;

desc('Deploy your project');
task('my_task', function () {
    // Custom task logic
    run('php artisan migrate');
    run('php artisan cache:clear');
    run('php artisan queue:restart');
});

// Link custom task to deployment flow
after('deploy:symlink', 'my_task');

This task will automatically run after the symbolic link is updated, performing tasks such as database migration, cache clearing, and queue restarting.

Running the Deployment

Once configured, initiate the deployment process by running:

<span class="fun">dep deploy production</span>

This command will deploy the code to your production server, pulling the latest code, installing dependencies, updating symlinks, and executing all defined tasks automatically.

Conclusion

Using Deployer makes it easy to implement automated and consistent deployment pipelines for PHP projects. With its flexible configuration options and task management features, it helps teams increase reliability and efficiency in their release workflows. Mastering Deployer will empower your team to deliver projects faster and with greater confidence.