5 ways to deploy PHP applications

PHP delivery overview

The deployment process of web apps depends on a wide range of factors: back and front-end architecture, type of server or IaaS platform (AWS, GCP, Azure Portal, etc.), infrastructure limitations, even team preferences towards specific tools and frameworks. A most generic type of workflow for delivering PHP apps usually involves the following steps:

1. Run unit tests on PHP application
2. Run composer install to download dependencies
3. Compile assets with Webpack/Parcel/Gulp
4. Upload to web server with an FTP client or PHP deployment tool

Of course, different web applications may require different steps. For example, you may want to configure required app services (libraries, databases, etc.), populate environment variables, run post-deployment scripts on the server – everything depends on the specifications of your PHP app, company workflow, and hardware at disposal.

Stop everything and read this now

Before we proceed with deploying PHP apps, there are two things that need to be emphasized every single time the word "deploy" comes into play:

I. Keep everything in version control!

Application source code, configuration files, documentation, db migration scripts — all of them should be kept safe and sound in Git, be it a GitHub repository, Bitbucket, GitLab, or any other provider.

Of course, to every rule there are exceptions (especially in IT), which brings us to the second thing:

II. Never store dependencies and compiled apps in version control!

Keeping dependencies and artifacts in the Git repository will cause it to bloat and sooner or later will mess up your entire project. This leads to one thing that developers hate doing: solving conflicts in code.

How to deploy PHP projects: 5 workflows

Now that we know what not to do, let's proceed to the 5 ways of proper PHP deployment.

#1. Deploy repo w/o dependencies and artifacts and build your app on server

1. First, we need to build and test the app. We can do it either on a local machine (CI server), or in a cloud service
2. Once the tests pass, we can upload the source code to the server via FTP, SFTP or Rsync (in this case without dependencies and artifacts).
3. The final step is downloading the dependencies and building the app by running Composer on the server via SSH.

Translated into a deployment tool pipeline, the whole process looks like this:

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Pros & Cons

#2. Deploy repo with dependencies and artifacts

In this workflow, PHP applications are first compiled and tested, then uploaded to the web server with dependencies and artifacts using a deployment tool:

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Pros & Cons

#3. The Git variation

This deployment strategy is basically the same as #1, but requires Git installed on the production server. The deployment from the source code repository is made with git push instead of regular file upload. Then, in Git, the post-receive hook triggers building the application code.

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Pros & Cons

#4. Zero-downtime / Atomic deployment

The workflows above have one flaw: the downtime. This means your web app will not be available for the client during the deployment. The solution to that is very simple: deploy and build the application in a different folder than the one from which it's served.

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The process involves creating a couple of directories on the server:

• /current - a symbolic link to the web app's current version in the releases directory to which your web server points.
• /releases - contains the history of uploaded releases. For each version a directory with the name of the revision tag is created.
• /deploy-cache - used for storing new files during the deployment. Once the upload has finished, its contents are copied to a new directory in the /releases directory.

Here's how it works:

1. A new version of the web app is uploaded to deploy-cache
2. The contents of deploy-cache are copied to /releases/${revision}
3. The current symbolic link is switched to /releases/${revision}

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Pros & Cons

#5. Docker deployment

The last method to deploy a PHP application involves containerization with Docker – a virtualization method that allows you to define the working environment of your application in a single text file called Dockerfile. The file is then used to build a Docker image with your app that can be launched in any environment supporting Docker (Linux/MacOS/Windows).

Here's a PHP Docker example written down to a Dockerfile:

docker
FROM php:7
RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y openssl zip unzip git
RUN curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
RUN docker-php-ext-install pdo mbstring
WORKDIR /app
COPY . /app
RUN composer install

CMD php artisan serve --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8181
EXPOSE 8181

The file can be used to build a Docker image:

bash
docker build -t my-image .
$

Once the image is built, you can launch your application in a Docker container isolated from its host:

bash
docker run -p 8081:8081 my-image
$

On top of that, Docker images can be pushed and pulled from a Docker registry. This way you can easily build an image on one server or PC, and run it on another. In this case, the whole delivery process will look like this:

1. Test application
2. Build Docker image with application
3. Push application to Docker registry
4. SSH to live server and run

bash
docker pull
docker run
$$

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Pros & Cons

Additional resources

• How to deploy PHP with Buddy (Video)
• How to configure a deployment pipeline for a PHP app
• How to use MySQL in PHP builds
• How to run Docker PHP integration tests
• How to automate PHP dependencies with Composer and Buddy