The Ultimate Guide to Automated WordPress Deployments

Automating WordPress Deployment: A Comprehensive Guide

In the realm of content management systems (CMS) and web applications, deploying WordPress can often be a labyrinthine process. Mistakes like missing files during an upload can trigger errors, incorrectly migrating databases can lead to data loss, and moving extensive libraries of media files can consume a significant amount of time. In any of these cases, your website may become temporarily unusable, a scenario that is far from ideal in an era where “always available” is the expectation.

In this comprehensive tutorial, we will delve into the world of automated WordPress deployment. We’ll cover everything you need to know to streamline your deployment process, including essential preparations and four distinct methods for automating your WordPress deployments.

Why Opt for Automated Deployments?

In the not-so-distant past, deploying websites manually, typically involving FTP clients and phpMyAdmin, was the norm. However, manual deployment is a process prone to errors. A single mistake can force you to restart the deployment from scratch, increasing the risk of downtime.

This is where automated deployments come into play. Automating the entire deployment process involves enabling a computer to execute all the necessary steps automatically and sequentially.

The advantages of automating your deployment process, as highlighted in The Twelve-Factor App, particularly in factor five, Build, release, run, include:

1. Reducing Human Error: Eliminate the potential for human error during deployment.
2. Consistency Across Environments: Ensure that deployments are consistent across various environments.
3. Enhancing Reliability: Increase the reliability of deployments.
4. Minimizing Downtime: Decrease or eliminate downtime during deployments.
5. Error Detection and Rollback: Facilitate error detection and easy rollback in case of deployment issues.
6. Accessible to Anyone: Enable anyone to execute deployments without extensive training.
7. Deployment to Multiple Locations: Facilitate deployment to different locations or multiple environments.
8. Frequent Deployments: Promote more frequent deployments, keeping your site up-to-date.

As a general rule, automated deployments should be characterized by consistency, reliability, and repeatability.

Preparing Your WordPress Site for Automation

Before diving into the world of automated deployments, there are several critical steps to consider to ensure that your WordPress deployments are indeed consistent, reliable, and repeatable. These steps include:

Storing Your Codebase in a Git Repository

1. Git Repository Hosting: Host your site’s codebase on a platform accessible to the deployment process, such as GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab.
2. Development Workflow: Establish a development workflow that includes feature branches for code review, testing on a staging environment, and merging into a production-ready branch.
3. Composer Integration: Utilize Composer with WordPress Packagist to manage WordPress core, plugins, and themes as dependencies.
4. Subdirectory Installation: Install WordPress core in a subdirectory of your public web root for a cleaner directory structure and enhanced security.
5. Secure Configuration: Ensure that sensitive configuration files, like wp-config.php, are not stored in the Git repository or placed in the public web root directory.

Additionally, you can further optimize your workflow by creating a .gitignore file to specify which files and folders to exclude from your Git repository.

Leveraging a Composer-Powered WordPress Boilerplate

If you’re wondering about the most efficient way to set up a new WordPress GitHub repository for your projects, complete with WordPress core, themes, and plugins installed as dependencies, while adhering to best practices and configurations, consider using a predefined boilerplate. This approach simplifies the setup process and saves valuable time.

For this purpose, we’ve developed the SpinupWP Composer Site repository. It offers a straightforward method to initiate a new WordPress repository with WordPress core in a subdirectory and themes and plugins as dependencies. Furthermore, it supports .env files, eliminating the need for manual wp-config.php management.

Disabling FTP Access and File Editing

To ensure the integrity of your automated deployments, it’s imperative to disable FTP access and file editing in your production environment. These actions serve multiple purposes:

1. Protection Against Data Loss: Prevent inadvertent file edits during deployments, safeguarding your data.
2. Enforce Best Practices: Discourage direct file editing on production, promoting a development-first approach.

To disable FTP access, restrict file editing, and enhance security, add the following constant to your wp-config.php file:

Managing Auto-Updates

Auto-updates in WordPress can be a double-edged sword, especially when employing Composer to manage your WordPress site. Disabling auto-updates might seem like a prudent choice to prevent unexpected conflicts and bugs that can arise when dependencies update automatically. However, it comes with potential security risks.

Here’s a nuanced approach:

• For most WordPress sites, it’s advisable to leave auto-updates enabled. This ensures prompt installation of security updates, reducing the vulnerability window.
• If you decide to manage updates through your automated deployment process, you can disable all auto-updates by adding the following constant to your wp-config.php file:

Deploying the Database

Ensuring your codebase is in optimal condition for deployment is crucial, but what about your database? Deploying databases can be a tricky endeavor, particularly for subsequent changes or updates, as overwriting data accidentally is a genuine concern. To address this challenge, consider adopting a database migrations approach.

Key benefits of using database migrations include:

• Control Over Database Changes: You maintain full control over database schema changes.
• Collaborative Development: Multiple developers can contribute to or modify the database schema.
• Testing and Error Prevention: Automated tests can validate the database changes, minimizing the risk of errors.
• Rollback Capability: In case of issues, you can quickly revert to previous database versions.

However, bear in mind that automating data changes within the database should be approached cautiously, especially for substantial datasets. It’s often more practical to manually update data via the WordPress dashboard for such cases.

Handling Media Files

Efficiently managing media files, particularly those related to your WordPress theme, is pivotal to a smooth deployment process. Here are two recommended approaches:

1. Include Theme-Related Media: Add media files necessary for your design (such as images and videos) to your version control system (VCS). Exclude media files intended for the live Media Library.To achieve this, specify the path to the uploads directory in the .gitignore file. This ensures that files added to the Media Library during development remain uncommitted, preventing potential overwrites during production deployment.
2. Offload to Cloud Storage: Alternatively, consider offloading your media files to cloud storage using plugins like WP Offload Media. This approach simplifies media management and minimizes deployment-related concerns.

Deploying Your Site: Four Approaches

With your WordPress site primed and ready, it’s time to explore four different methods for automating your deployments:

1. Manual Deployment Using Git Push

The simplest approach involves using the Git push command to manually deploy your WordPress site. Here’s a brief overview:

1. Set up a remote Git repository on your web server, mirroring your hosted repository.
2. Add a Git remote to your local repository, pointing to the server repository.
3. Push changes from your local branch to the production remote on the server.

This method provides a basic way to deploy your site, but it requires manual execution.

2. Automatic Deployment Using Webhooks

Automating deployment via webhooks eliminates the need for manual pushes. Most repository hosting services offer webhook functionality, allowing you to trigger a deployment on a specific event, such as a Git push.

To set up webhooks:

• Configure a webhook in your repository service to send a payload to a designated URL on your web server.
• Create a script on your server to handle the payload, perform security checks, and execute a Git pull to fetch the latest code.
• Optionally, use a secret key for verification.

Webhooks provide automation benefits but may have limitations, particularly related to permissions and additional tasks beyond code deployment.

3. Automatic Deployment Using SpinupWP’s Push to Deploy Feature

SpinupWP offers a convenient “Push to Deploy” feature that streamlines the deployment process:

1. Create a new site or configure an existing site with SpinupWP to deploy from a Git repository.
2. Configure an SSH connection with GitHub.
3. Enable the “Push to Deploy” toggle and obtain a deployment URL.
4. Configure this URL in your Git repository as a webhook.

SpinupWP also supports post-deployment scripts, enabling you to automate various tasks, such as installing Composer dependencies or migrating the database.

This approach simplifies deployment for WordPress projects and works seamlessly with the SpinupWP Composer Site repository.

4. Automated Deployment Using Buddy

For more complex deployment scenarios, consider utilizing Buddy, a robust Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) tool:

1. Buddy supports WordPress deployments and DevOps tools like Docker.
2. It integrates with third-party services like Slack and New Relic.
3. You can automate deployment tasks, including notifications, testing, and atomic deployments.

By combining Buddy with SpinupWP, you gain fine-grained control over automated deployments tailored to your specific needs.

Conclusion

Automating your WordPress deployments is a wise investment that frees you from the burden of manual deployment. While manual deployments may offer a sense of accomplishment, they can become tedious and error-prone over time.

By dedicating a few hours to automation, you can save time, reduce costs, and eliminate stress associated with deployments. With a well-orchestrated automated deployment process, you can focus on what you do best: creating and improving your WordPress website without the constant worry of downtime and errors.