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Hey techies !
I am almost complete with my project and now need to upload the site on a production server. My queries are :
Q1 - What is the best way to maintain the code on the production server ? I am expecting lot of changes in the coming days so need to have a correct system at place. My understanding is that I will have a subdomain with the code ( it will use the live database ) . So for any changes I will first update the subdomain site and if correct then copy the changed files to live domain. Is this correct method ? Q2 - What is the best way to update a live database ? This is the scary part . How to update/change my live database for any changes like addition of fields ? Q3 - Which is the Best ftp for mac os. Does vscode have some reliable extension for this ?
If you really want to up your deployment skills, I suggest you learn git. It is a version control tool and makes it very easy to deploy changes to production, as it will track every single change to every single file. So you can always see when you changed what.
Regarding changing the database, you use migrations. https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/migrations
Github is one option. It means I update on GitHub, and then the code is updated on subdomain from GitHub repository and then after testing I update live domain from subdomain ? Is this what you are suggesting ? I think cpanel has started some functionality with GitHub now ?
@FounderStartup Checking it on a subdomain is called staging. If this is your first time, then maybe checking it locally on your machine will be ok. You should be able to test everything locally assuming it has the same setup as production.
Be aware that github isnt the same as git
@Sinnbeck Not exactly. I have few sites running , but they were developed by freelancers. This is my first site developed by me and will be maintained by me , so need to follow the best procedure.
Anyway thanks for your suggestions.
@FounderStartup one key point is to always update your site via a script ( eg bash) so that it's not down to you to remember certain steps
If you are manually copying files between servers then you are definitely doing it wrong
my process is (simplified) commit changes to git, login to the server, run a command that clones the latest commit into a new folder, run composer install in that new folder, run any migrations, swap a symlink from the old folder to the new folder
On most sites, the above is a single command and takes typically less than 5 seconds
( or automate through ploi.io or forge)
@FounderStartup Thats totally fine. You might want to consider using a setup service like Forge or Ploi (I use ploi myself), to set up a server and manage it.
Here is an example of how easy it is to set up staging if you use ploi: https://ploi.io/documentation/staging-sites/how-do-i-create-a-staging-site
https://ploi.io/documentation/staging-sites/how-do-i-deploy-staging-to-production
I checked ploi.io. Seems to be good. But is it an alternative of whm/cpanel ? Do I need cpanel also with plio.io ?
@FounderStartup It does not have cpanel. You can see it as an alternative to cpanel.
It requires you to have a subscription with one of its supported server providers. It will then create a server from scratch for you and set everything up (install php, nginx and mysql).
https://ploi.io/server-installation
I have used both digital ocean and hetzner to provision servers, but they do support others as well
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