Automatic website deployment setup

Configuring Automatic Website Deployment

Automatic deployment is a process where code changes automatically reach the server after passing CI checks. It eliminates manual operations, reduces human error risk, and accelerates change delivery.

Automatic Deployment Variants

Push-based — the CI/CD system connects to the server and performs deployment itself. Pull-based — the server periodically checks and pulls changes (GitOps approach).

GitHub Actions → SSH Deployment

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
name: Deploy

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build
        run: npm ci && npm run build

      - name: Deploy via SSH
        uses: appleboy/[email protected]
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
          username: deploy
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          script: |
            cd /var/www/myapp
            git pull origin main
            composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
            php artisan migrate --force
            php artisan config:cache
            php artisan route:cache
            php artisan view:cache
            php artisan queue:restart
            sudo systemctl reload php8.3-fpm

Deployer (PHP)

Deployer is a tool for atomic deployment with rollback capability:

// deploy.php
namespace Deployer;

require 'recipe/laravel.php';

host('production')
    ->set('hostname', 'your-server.com')
    ->set('remote_user', 'deploy')
    ->set('deploy_path', '/var/www/myapp')
    ->set('branch', 'main');

host('staging')
    ->set('hostname', 'staging.example.com')
    ->set('remote_user', 'deploy')
    ->set('deploy_path', '/var/www/staging')
    ->set('branch', 'develop');

set('shared_files', ['.env']);
set('shared_dirs', ['storage']);
set('writable_dirs', ['bootstrap/cache', 'storage']);
set('keep_releases', 5);

after('deploy:failed', 'deploy:unlock');

task('deploy:migrate', function () {
    run('cd {{release_path}} && php artisan migrate --force');
});

after('deploy:vendors', 'deploy:migrate');

# Deploy
dep deploy production

# Rollback
dep rollback production

Webhook Deployment

For simple cases, use a webhook on the server:

// deploy.php (on server)
<?php
$secret = getenv('DEPLOY_SECRET');
$signature = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_HUB_SIGNATURE_256'] ?? '';

if (!hash_equals("sha256=" . hash_hmac('sha256', file_get_contents('php://input'), $secret), $signature)) {
    http_response_code(403);
    exit;
}

$output = shell_exec('cd /var/www/myapp && git pull && composer install --no-dev && php artisan migrate --force 2>&1');
echo $output;

GitHub → Repository Settings → Webhooks → Add webhook → URL of your deploy.php.

Zero-Downtime Deployment via Symlink

# Directory structure
/var/www/myapp/
├── current -> releases/20241115143022  # symlink to active release
├── releases/
│   ├── 20241115143022/   # current
│   ├── 20241115120000/   # previous
│   └── 20241114090000/   # old
├── shared/
│   ├── .env
│   └── storage/

#!/bin/bash
# deploy.sh
DEPLOY_DIR=/var/www/myapp
RELEASE_DIR=$DEPLOY_DIR/releases/$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)

# 1. Download new code
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/user/repo.git $RELEASE_DIR

# 2. Link shared resources
ln -s $DEPLOY_DIR/shared/.env $RELEASE_DIR/.env
ln -s $DEPLOY_DIR/shared/storage $RELEASE_DIR/storage

# 3. Install dependencies
cd $RELEASE_DIR && composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

# 4. Switch symlink (atomic)
ln -sfn $RELEASE_DIR $DEPLOY_DIR/current

# 5. Reload services
sudo systemctl reload php8.3-fpm

# 6. Remove old releases (keep 5)
ls -t $DEPLOY_DIR/releases | tail -n +6 | xargs -I{} rm -rf $DEPLOY_DIR/releases/{}

Deployment Notifications

# GitHub Actions — Slack notification
- name: Notify Slack
  if: always()
  uses: 8398a7/action-slack@v3
  with:
    status: ${{ job.status }}
    text: "Deploy to production: ${{ job.status }}"
    webhook_url: ${{ secrets.SLACK_WEBHOOK }}

Implementation Timeline

Basic auto-deployment via SSH/GitHub Actions: 1 day. Deployer with zero-downtime and rollback: 2–3 days.