Better support for beta/staging

[mnolin]

Currently it is very difficult to maintain a beta / staging version of your wordpress site. As wordpress grows in popularity and is used on websites that would like to minimize downtime a beta/staging setup in addition to a production or main setup would be ideal. If one tries to do this now, you can attempt to copy the whole database over to the beta or staging setup which will result in links on the beta/staging version going to the production/main url's. This makes it relatively unusable. Ideally there would be some solution where developers can decide for their beta/staging site to download data from their production/main server every day or at will which will allow them to keep things updated and allow for them to test with their most recent content which can be useful. If this synchronization can occur without the previous problems and other problems that occur with simply copying the entire production database that would be wonderful!

[mnolin]

Here's an earlier request in the wordpress forums that is essentially requesting the same thing: ​http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic/easier-migration-from-developmentstaging-to-production

[scribu]

I think you should open this in the ​ideas forum instead, to discuss all the details, before attempting a solution. (It might even be good as a GSoC proposal).

[hakre]

Well it's not just an idea, it's a valid use-case scenario that is pretty well known at least by senior webapp developers.

I promote to document a standard staging scenario for wordpress and then to provide the manual steps to do it. After some iterations it should be clear which steps needs to be performed for staging.

The next step is to implement/automate that. Within or after this stage it might be wise that core-code provides some actions so that plugins and themes can reflect a change of the domain name for example.

I have moved some sites, I think the two most imporant parts are:

• change of a domain name
• database versioning

Better fitting then the ideas forum is a codex page for that documentation process. As a start I created a page: ​Staging in the Wordpress Codex which already contains all basic information and related links.

I reopened this ticket because I think this is interesting for some serious administrators and developers.

[hakre]

@scribu: the idea's forum post is closed btw. . Can you take care that it get's reopened or you know who can?

[mikeschinkel]

Replying to hakre:

I have moved some sites, I think the two most imporant parts are:

• change of a domain name

For my most recent project I've developed a plugin that supports domain migrations from development to testing to staging to live deployment, both forward and backwards, and it does it by exposing hooks so that any plugin can add it's own support, or anyone who needs to can add said support for practically any existing plugin. Unfortunately to be most useful it really needs a few modifications to core such as a few functions added to /wp-includes/functions.php or another file included in /wp-load.php, a function to be called in /wp-config.php just before /wp-settings.php is included and addition of a /wp-migrate.php file in the root. None of those fit nicely into the "hands-off install" which is preferred for plugins.

While what I have is not yet what I would call 100% mature, I would gladly contribute what I have for review if there is interest in considering it. I would present it proactively but I'll need to do some work on it before it would be in a form to present and I wasn't planning to do that work in the near term but I will if there is interest.

[scribu]

Replying to hakre:

@scribu: the idea's forum post is closed btw. . Can you take care that it get's reopened or you know who can?

That would be Jane, but if we're going to discuss it here, there's no point in also reopening the topic there.

[hakre]

Administration / Dev related: #13067

[hakre]

Replying to mikeschinkel:

For my most recent project I've developed a plugin that supports domain migrations from development to testing to staging to live deployment, both forward and backwards, and it does it by exposing hooks so that [...]

That all sounds very promising. Would you mind so send some code before it's perfect? That would help to gather feedback I assume and I can give it a testrun to see how that works out for me.

[mikeschinkel]

Replying to hakre:

That all sounds very promising. Would you mind so send some code before it's perfect? That would help to gather feedback I assume and I can give it a testrun to see how that works out for me.

Email me at my gmail: "mikeschinkel"

[ocean90]

It's also a GSoC project, see ​http://gsoc2011.wordpress.com/wordpress-move/

Related/Duplicate: #12502

[chriscct7]

This is firmly outside of core territory. There are services, plugins, and even hosts that now provide this. Closing as wontfix