On the Development Server

Lets start with the Development server. When creating bash scripts, I like to collect all of the variable info at the beginning of the file. You should be able to enter all your dev server info and all of your production server info here.

#current info
CUR_URL=development.server.com
CUR_DB_HOST=database_host
CUR_DB_NAME=database_name
CUR_DB_USER=database_user
CUR_DB_PASS=database_password
CUR_PATH=/path/to/site/
 
#new info
NEW_URL=production.server.com
NEW_DB_HOST=new_database_host
NEW_DB_NAME=new_database_name
NEW_DB_USER=new_database_user
NEW_DB_PASS=new_database_password

Let’s name the SQL backup file and the site zip file

#make MySQL backup filename
BACKUPMYSQLFILE=mysqlbackup.sql
 
#Make zip file backup name
BACKUPFILE=siteexport.tgz

Getting into the mix, let’s back up the SQL database and save it into the same folder as all of the site files.

#export Database
mysqldump -h localhost -u $CUR_DB_USER -p$CUR_DB_PASS $CUR_DB_NAME > $CUR_PATH$BACKUPMYSQLFILE

Since we are moving this to a different domain name, let’s search for the references to the old URL in the database and replace them with the new one

#find and replace old URLs in SQL file
sed -i “s/${CUR_URL}/${NEW_URL}/g” $CUR_PATH$BACKUPMYSQLFILE

Now that that’s done, let’s replace the old connection information in the wp-config.php file with the new connection info

#find and replace old Database Info in wp-config.php file
sed -i.backup -e”s/define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘${CUR_DB_NAME}’);/define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘${NEW_DB_NAME}’);/g” -e”s/define(‘DB_USER’, ‘${CUR_DB_USER}’);/define(‘DB_USER’, ‘${NEW_DB_USER}’);/g” -e”s/define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘${CUR_DB_PASS}’);/define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘${NEW_DB_PASS}’);/g” -e”s/define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘${CUR_DB_HOST}’);/define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘${NEW_DB_HOST}’);/g” ${CUR_PATH}wp-config.php

Now that we have all of that done, We will change to the directory where the site lives and zip up the entire thing, SQL backup and all. Then we can move the file into the root of the web server so we will be able to download it later.

#change to the directory of the site, zip it up and move it into the document root
cd ${CUR_PATH} && tar -czf ../${BACKUPFILE} .
mv ../$BACKUPFILE $CUR_PATH

Okay, we should be done on the development server now and there should be a single zip file in the document root that we can download by typing http://someURL.com/siteexport.tgz into the address bar. Now we move to the production server.

On the Production Server

Now on the production server, let’s run a bash script starting with defining the paths and credentials our script will need to install the site exactly the way it was

OLD_URL=http://someURL.com/
NEW_PATH=/path/to/site/
NEW_DB_HOST=some_host
NEW_DB_NAME=database_name
NEW_DB_USER=database_user_name
NEW_DB_PASS=database_password

Now let’s get busy downloading and unzipping the backup file we created on the development server into the document root on the new server.

wget {$OLD_URL}siteexport.tgz
tar -xsf siteexport.tgz -C NEW_PATH

Now we will import the SQL file into the database.

mysql -h {$NEW_DB_HOST} -D {$NEW_DB_NAME} -u {$NEW_DB_USER} -p’{$NEW_DB_PASS}’ < {$NEW_PATH}mysqlbackup.sql

Now that everything is done, let’s get rid of that zip file and the SQL file

rm {$NEW_PATH}siteexport.tgz
rm {$NEW_PATH}mysqlbackup.sql

So there it is. Two bash scripts, one to run on the development server, one to run on the production server. These sure did make my life easier. I hope you like them also. Just to recap, below are the scripts in their entirety. Or download them both here

Bash Script for Development Server

#!/bin/sh
 
#current info
CUR_URL=development.server.com
CUR_DB_HOST=database_host
CUR_DB_NAME=database_name
CUR_DB_USER=database_user
CUR_DB_PASS=database_password
CUR_PATH=/path/to/site/
 
#new info
NEW_URL=production.server.com
NEW_DB_HOST=new_database_host
NEW_DB_NAME=new_database_name
NEW_DB_USER=new_database_user
NEW_DB_PASS=new_database_password
 
#make MySQL backup filename
BACKUPMYSQLFILE=mysqlbackup.sql
#Make zip file backup name
BACKUPFILE=siteexport.tgz
 
#export Database
mysqldump -h localhost -u $CUR_DB_USER -p$CUR_DB_PASS $CUR_DB_NAME > $CUR_PATH$BACKUPMYSQLFILE
 
#find and replace old URLs in SQL file
sed -i “s/${CUR_URL}/${NEW_URL}/g” $CUR_PATH$BACKUPMYSQLFILE
 
#find and replace old Database Info in wp-config.php file
sed -i.backup -e”s/define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘${CUR_DB_NAME}’);/define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘${NEW_DB_NAME}’);/g” -e”s/define(‘DB_USER’, ‘${CUR_DB_USER}’);/define(‘DB_USER’, ‘${NEW_DB_USER}’);/g” -e”s/define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘${CUR_DB_PASS}’);/define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘${NEW_DB_PASS}’);/g” -e”s/define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘${CUR_DB_HOST}’);/define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘${NEW_DB_HOST}’);/g” ${CUR_PATH}wp-config.php
 
#change to the directory of the site, zip it up and move it into the document root
cd ${CUR_PATH} && tar -czf ../${BACKUPFILE} .
mv ../$BACKUPFILE $CUR_PATH
 

Bash Script for Production Server

#!/bin/sh
 
OLD_URL=http://someURL.com/
NEW_PATH=/path/to/site/
NEW_DB_HOST=some_host
NEW_DB_NAME=database_name
NEW_DB_USER=database_user_name
NEW_DB_PASS=database_password
 
#download and extract site backup zip file
wget {$OLD_URL}siteexport.tgz
tar -xsf siteexport.tgz -C {$NEW_PATH}
 
#import data into database
mysql -h {$NEW_DB_HOST} -D {$NEW_DB_NAME} -u {$NEW_DB_USER} -p’{$NEW_DB_PASS}’ < {$NEW_PATH}mysqlbackup.sql
 
#clean up files
rm {$NEW_PATH}siteexport.tgz
rm {$NEW_PATH}mysqlbackup.sql

This tutorial outlines backing up your site database first, then backing up the site files. It also includes a handy script that will delete the old backups so you won’t fill up your hard disk. Lastly, I show how to add it as a cron job so it will run automatically.

As always, use this stuff at your own risk. No one has ever called me perfect and I doubt this would qualify either. As a matter of fact, there may be a better way to do this stuff too. All I know is that it works for me. Without further ado:

Database Backup

First off, we define what we want the filename to be. I like my backup files to include the date in the filename so I am using the date function to tack the date and time (in the format 2012_01_21_200) onto the front of the filename. The rest of the filename describes what the file is.

BACKUPFILE=$(date +%Y_%m_%d_%H%M)_mysqlbackup.sql

Next, I want to go ahead and save the path to the site into a variable so I won’t have to enter it a bunch of times.

PATHTOSITE=”/path/to/site”

Now I want to use the mysqldump function to create a text file with all of the database in it and save it to the $PATHTOSITE/mysql_backups/ folder with the filename that I created above.

mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p’password’ db_name > $PATHTOSITE/mysql_backups/$BACKUPFILE

So it won’t take up too much space, Let’s zip it up with gzip

gzip -f $PATHTOSITE/mysql_backups/$BACKUPFILE

Site Backup

Now let’s back up the entire contents of the htdocs folder. The first line defiens what the file name should be. The second line we are creating a tarball of the htdocs folder and putting it into the folder called site_backups.

BACKUPFILE=$(date +%Y_%m_%d_%H%M)_sitebackup.tgz

tar -cvzpf $PATHTOSITE/site_backups/$BACKUPFILE $PATHTOSITE/htdocs

As one might imagine, if your site is any significant size, these site backup files would fill up the hard disk after a while. I guess remembering to go in and delete the old ones would be a method of preventing the hard disk from filling up, but this is supposed to be about automation right?

The following code finds all the files in each of our backup folders and deletes the ones that are more than 7 days old.

find $PATHTOSITE/mysql_backups -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;

find $PATHTOSITE/site_backups -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;

Now we can set this up as a cron job so it will run every night. To get to the cron jobs, I type the following at the command line

crontab -e

After it opens the file go down to the bottom of the file and add the new job in. I prefer it to run at 2am myself.

0 2 * * * “./path/to/script/site_backup.sh”

This should be on its own line and there might even be others in there already. So just put it after the existing lines. In case it isn’t clear what this does, let me explain, this line is telling the server, “At the 0th minute of 2 o’clock (24 hour clock btw), * (every day), * (every month), * (every day of the week), run the script “./path/to/script/site_backup.sh”

This should do it. I have the full bash script below for you to copy. Enjoy

Full Script

#!/bin/sh
#FILENAME: site_backup.sh
BACKUPFILE=$(date +%Y_%m_%d_%H%M)_mysqlbackup.sql
PATHTOSITE=”/path/to/site”
mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p’password’ db_name > $PATHTOSITE/mysql_backups/$BACKUPFILE
gzip -f $PATHTOSITE/mysql_backups/$BACKUPFILE
BACKUPFILE=$(date +%Y_%m_%d_%H%M)_sitebackup.tgz
tar -cvzpf $PATHTOSITE/site_backups/$BACKUPFILE $PATHTOSITE/htdocs
find $PATHTOSITE/mysql_backups -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;
find $PATHTOSITE/site_backups -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;