version checking and updates

chrislive

Hi everyone,

I have built a PHP system that is deployed at a few different locations and I want to make my update process much easier. What I want to do is the following:

From the Live Site
1. Check the version of the file (using filemtime)
2. Check the latest version from a Source Server

(this part is ok already)

if the version is current then do nothing. If the time stamp on the source server is newer than the live site then we want to do this:

Using the account username and password download the latest source file.

This is important because I do not wish to use the apache user to do the update. I want to use the real username/password associated with that account.

does php support a SU type command? all my sites will be hosted on Linux boxes if that helps.

But when I think of this is seems to me to be a huge security issue. is there another way to download the latest file without having to open my file permissions to the webserver?

Thanks
Chris

chrislive

ok done some thinking and this is my approach now. please tell me if this is a bad method or if you all have a better one.

Locally I check the filename/version and then include the server file passing through the filename/version and then lets my server handle everything else.

i check against the passed version and file.

Then I plan to connect using FTP (so that it will be the users username/password and not apache) and upload the appropriate file 🙂

how does that sound to everyone?

justsomeone

Automating system updates may sound good in theory, but can often create more hassle than it's worth. I still like to have someone supervise any deployment to a live site - just to make sure everything goes as expected.

chrislive

I agree with you as well actually. Last night while working more on it I decided that clients would not have access to make the updates themself. I would administer it from my control panel.

Just working on the best method to do so at the moment. I think I have most of it worked out.

I will post more details once they are finalized (not sure if this kind of method would help anyone else)

Thanks
Chris