FTP Deployment: Smart FTP Uploading

There is nothing worse than manually uploading files via FTP, for example, using Total Commander. (Although, editing files directly on the server and then desperately trying to synchronize them is even worse.) Once you fail to automate the process, it consumes much more of your time and increases the risk of errors, such as forgetting to upload a file.

Today, sophisticated application deployment techniques are used, such as via Git, but many people still stick to uploading individual files via FTP. For them, the FTP Deployment tool is designed to automate and simplify the uploading of applications over FTP.

FTP Deployment is a PHP script that automates the entire process. You simply specify which directory (local) to upload to (remote). These details are written into a deployment.ini file, clicking which can immediately launch the script, making deployment a one-click affair:

deployment deployment.ini

What does the deployment.ini file look like? The remote item is actually the only required field; all others are optional:

; remote FTP server
remote = ftp://user:secretpassword@ftp.example.com/directory
; you can use ftps:// or sftp:// protocols (sftp requires SSH2 extension)

; do not like to specify user & password in 'remote'? Use these options:
;user = ...
;password = ...

; FTP passive mode
passiveMode = yes

; local path (optional)
local = .

; run in test-mode? (can be enabled by option -t or --test too)
test = no

; files and directories to ignore
ignore = "
	.git*
	project.pp[jx]
	/deployment.*
	/log
	temp/*
	!temp/.htaccess
"
; is allowed to delete remote files? (defaults to yes)
allowDelete = yes

; jobs to run before uploading
before[] = local: lessc assets/combined.less assets/combined.css
before[] = http://example.com/deployment.php?before

; jobs to run after uploading and before uploaded files are renamed
afterUpload[] = http://example.com/deployment.php?afterUpload

; directories to purge after uploading
purge[] = temp/cache

; jobs to run after everything (upload, rename, delete, purge) is done
after[] = remote: unzip api.zip
after[] = remote: chmod 0777 temp/cache  ; change permissions
after[] = http://example.com/deployment.php?after

; files to preprocess (defaults to *.js *.css)
preprocess = no

; file which contains hashes of all uploaded files (defaults to .htdeployment)
deploymentFile = .deployment

; default permissions for new files
;filePermissions = 0644

; default permissions for new directories
;dirPermissions = 0755

In test mode (when started with the -t parameter), no file uploads or deletions occur on the FTP, so you can use it to check if all values are correctly set.

The ignore item uses the same format as .gitignore:

• log – ignores all log files or directories, even within all subfolders
• /log – ignores the log file or directory in the root directory
• app/log – ignores the log file or directory in the app subfolder of the root directory
• data/* – ignores everything inside the data folder but still creates the folder on FTP
• !data/session – excludes the session file or folder from the previous rule
• project.pp[jx] – ignores project.ppj and project.ppx files or directories

Before starting the upload and after it finishes, you can have scripts called on your server (see before and after), which can switch the server into a maintenance mode, sending a 503 header, for instance.

To ensure synchronization of a large number of files happens (as far as possible) transactionally, all files are first uploaded with the .deploytmp extension and then quickly renamed. Additionally, a .htdeployment file is saved on the server containing MD5 hashes of all files, and it's used for further web synchronization.

On subsequent runs, it uploads only changed files and deletes removed ones (unless prevented by the allowdelete directive).

Files can be preprocessed before uploading. By default, all .css files are compressed using Clean-CSS and .js files using Google Closure Compiler. Before compression, they first expand basic mod_include directives from Apache. For instance, you can create a combined.js file:

<!--#include file="jquery.js" -->
<!--#include file="jquery

.fancybox.js" -->
<!--#include file="main.js" -->

You can request Apache on your local server to assemble this by combining the three mentioned files as follows:

<FilesMatch "combined\.(js|css)$">
	Options +Includes
	SetOutputFilter INCLUDES
</FilesMatch>

The server will then upload the files in their combined and compressed form. Your HTML page will save resources by loading just one JavaScript file.

In the deployment.ini configuration file, you can create multiple sections, or even make one configuration file for data and another for the application, to make synchronization as fast as possible and not always calculate the fingerprint of a large number of files.

I created the FTP Deployment tool many years ago and it fully covers my needs for a deployment tool. However, it's important to emphasize that the FTP protocol, by transmitting the password in plain text, poses a security risk and you definitely should not use it, for example, on public Wi-Fi.