12

Product support

Visit this product's website for support.

  • Added on Jun 4, 2021
  • Current version: 2.2.0
  • Platform Compatibility
    v3.x use latest
    v2.x use latest
    v1.x incompatible
  • Created by
  • Public repository

Categories

A simple way to deploy your application to a remote location.

Requirements

  • October CMS 2.1.20 or above
  • PHP openssl extension
  • PHP eval function

Why is This Plugin Needed?

This plugin helps in cases where your remote server (production, staging, etc) does not have the ability to run the standard deployment workflow, either due to lack of computational resources or lack of service by the hosting provider. An example of this is shared hosting, where shell access is limited or composer does not have enough memory to execute.

How It Works

The Deploy plugin works by creating a secure channel between your local developer environment and your hosting server. Plugins, themes and core files are then compressed and sent securely to your server and then installed remotely. This approach is similar to an update gateway, except files are pushed to the server instead.

Upgrade Older Versions of October CMS

You may use this plugin as a solution to upgrading your website to a newer version of October CMS, for example, if want to upgrade a v1 website to use v2. Always take a complete site backup before performing these steps.

  1. Install or upgrade to October CMS v2 locally on your machine
  2. Deploy the Beacon files to the v1 site you want to upgrade
  3. The Deploy plugin will attempt to upgrade the site during its first deployment

If you need support with this process, feel free to send an email to the helpdesk.

License

This plugin is an official extension of the October CMS platform and is free to use if you have a platform license. See EULA license for more details.

Before starting, you should have set up a new site in your hosting manager and ideally have an empty database. You may also apply these instructions to an existing website, including legacy versions of October CMS, however, please make sure you have taken a complete backup in case something goes wrong.

Control Panel Setup

After installing this plugin, navigate to the Settings > Deploy in your October CMS control panel and click Create Server.

  1. Enter the web address for your site (eg: https://mycpanelwebsite.tld/)
  2. Generate a new RSA private key, or enter an existing one to set up an existing server
  3. Download the Beacon ZIP files

Beacon Deployment

In your Beacon ZIP file, you should notice the following files:

  • index.php
  • bootstrap/app.php
  • bootstrap/autoload.php
  • bootstrap/beacon.php

You can upload these files anywhere and they will become a target for deployment of October CMS. You can use FTP or the file manager in your hosting control panel.

Important: The directory where the files are uploaded must be writable by your web server (eg: permission 755 for apache).

Run Your First Deployment

Once you have the Beacon installed remotely and the server set up locally. It's time to perform your first deployment.

Troubleshooting Beacon the Response

Sometimes you may see an error that a valid response from a beacon was not found.

The first thing to try is the "Check Beacon" link to make sure the beacon is Active, if it says Unreachable, try downloading the beacon files and uploading them again to your server.

You can perform more advanced troubleshooting by capturing the raw response from the server or beacon. To capture the raw response from the beacon, do the following.

  1. Add ?debug=1 to the end of the URL in the backend.
  2. Click Check beacon.
  3. Check the log file in storage/logs to see what the server is responding with.

This should hopefully provide some insight in to why the response was not accepted.

Using .deployignore to Ignore Files

There are times when you don't want specific files to be deployed, such as the node_modules directory used in plugins and themes. This is possible by creating a .deployignore file in the base directory of your plugin or theme. This file behaves the same as .gitignore file where you can configure Git to ignore files you don't want to check in.

The following .deployignore file will exclude the node_modules directory:

node_modules/

The file must be located at the base directory of the theme or plugin. For example:

  • themes/demo/.deployignore
  • plugins/acme/demo/.deployignore
  • Found the plugin not useful on 22 Aug, 2023

    I'm getting an error saying in the Beacon file... Failed to download there was a problem, please try again or try again later

  • Found the plugin useful on 19 Jul, 2023

    Great plugin!

    What I would like to see is a version control for themes. But overall it is great.

  • Found the plugin not useful on 26 Jan, 2023

    I can't seem to get this one working. It would be great if it worked. When adding a server on my local machine and I try to generate a key, I get this javascript error:

    ReferenceError: forge is not defined
        at generatePrivateKeyFromForge (servers.js?v90eb1dff:9:5)

    If I generate my own key and paste it in, I get an other error

    Could not validate private key: 'error:0909006C:PEM routines:get_name:no start line'

  • Found the plugin useful on 24 Jan, 2023

    Its a cool feature to install octobercms remotely, but i'll be nice to have an option to deploy database data, for example, when theme files are stored in DB instead of filesystem

  • Found the plugin not useful on 7 Jun, 2022

    Unable to connect to beacon! Beacon files are deployed correctly!

  • Found the plugin useful on 21 Jan, 2022

    For anybody struggling while debugging, I was trying to add ?debug=1 to the server url. Instead you need to add ?debug=1 to the backend url form where you are running the builder plugin.

  • Found the plugin not useful on 22 Dec, 2021

    Unable to connect beacon. I am using godaddy shared hosting and my beacon is unreachable. Files are hosted correctly.

  • Found the plugin useful on 11 Jul, 2021

    This plugin is just amazing! Perfect! Well done!

  • Found the plugin useful on 10 Jun, 2021

    Very good and usefull plugin, works like a charm!

  • Found the plugin useful on 9 Jun, 2021

    Good job, works great!

2.2.0

Adds ability to deploy local media files

Aug 09, 2023

2.1.5

Fixes dark mode support in October v3

May 09, 2023

2.1.4

Fixes whisper messages displayed in console output

Jan 22, 2023

2.1.3

Fixes untranslated update message

Oct 27, 2022

2.1.2

Fixes unescaped values for database credentials

Sep 07, 2022

2.1.1

Adds support for app directory deployment

May 14, 2022

2.1.0

Improve support with October v3

May 13, 2022

2.0.4

Improve support with October v3

Apr 27, 2022

2.0.3

Support with October v3

Feb 01, 2022

2.0.2

Fixes support for 32-bit systems

Nov 24, 2021

2.0.1

Rewrite beacon interface

Nov 21, 2021

1.1.1

Adds support for ignoring files in deployments

Nov 15, 2021

1.1.0

Transmit payload using POST instead of GET

Nov 15, 2021

1.0.4

Server will now take build number from parent installation

Aug 11, 2021

1.0.3

Improve error messages

Jun 08, 2021

1.0.2

Minor fix for PHP 7.2 support

Jun 04, 2021

1.0.1

First version of Deploy plugin

Jun 03, 2021