Development Workflow | Modules Unraveled

125 Deploying Drupal Code Using Deployotron with Thomas Fini Hansen and Thomas Gielfeldt - Modules Unraveled Podcast

Photo of Thomas Fini Hansen and Thomas Gielfeldt

Deployotron

  • What is Deployotron?
    It’s a deployment tool.
    A low-key approach to easy and safe deployment.
  • When did you start developing it?
    Dec. 2013
  • Why did you feel it was necessary to add another layer on top of Drush?
    Needed simple, safe, easy to grok deployment process. Not a Swiss army knife. Other solutions proved to be either too complex/feature-rich or require 3rd party software beyond a simple drush command.
  • How does it work?
    Deployotron is implemented as a drush command.
    When deploying it runs a set of “actions” that does the different steps of deploying.
  • What kinds of actions can you perform with Deployotron?
  • Is this extendable? Can other developers add their own commands to be performed during deployment?
  • Is there a way to configure deployment per environment? So that certain commands are always performed on Staging but not on Live.
  • What needs to be setup before you can use Deployotron?
    Deployotron requires drush and the appropriate ssh public keys on the target servers.
    And Git.
  • How does it improve the deployment workflow?
    Easy and fast deployment to other enviroments from the command line.
    Quick to set up for a new project.
  • What if you mess up? Is there a rollback feature?
    There’s an OMG command which will import a dump and reset the codebase to the one that was deployed at the time.
  • How does this integrate with other tools like Capistrano, Aegir, etc.
    It doesn’t. Deployotron was meant to be more of an alternative; a simpler one.
  • So, is this aimed at people hosting on shared hosts? Or do you need a VPS at minimum?
    Not aimed at shared hosts, as such, but it does support it, given that you have ssh access and drush availability of course.

Use Cases

  • How are you guys using it at Reload?
    Very carefully :-)
    With careless abandon.
  • Do you know of anyone else using it?
    No, not specificly, but there was some interest at the DrupalHagen DrupalCamp.