Rudd-O.com

Hello, and welcome back to another installment of my journey through Web consolidation! Today, I’ll show you how I automated my Web sites’ WordPress upgrades using assorted and powerful Linux software. You’ll also enjoy an exclusive look at the release process of one of my software products.

Why automation?

If you’re running a single Web site or blog, it makes little sense to automate tasks, since 99% of your maintenance tasks will be ad-hoc. But that’s not my case.

I run three Web sites, two of them WordPress-based. In my scenario, WordPress upgrades and enhancements come in pairs. My sites demand an assortment of more than 100 plugins and themes, so those need to be upgraded as well.

I also sell a customized WordPress package, called Turbocharged. Remember the 100 plugins and themes? Well, every so often I do a new release of Turbocharged, which is almost exactly what powers my Web sites.

As you may have guessed, releasing such a huge package is is a time-consuming process! Combined with upgrading my own sites to the latest edition of Turbocharged, it often takes the better part of a day. And doing it manually is not an option, especially since my Web assets are expected to grow in the future.

Ideally, I’d like upgrades and enhancements to:

• be a 10-second process I can run on my Web server: saving a day, even if it’s just to squander it in drinks and clubbing with my buddies, is worthwhile. Less time spent in operations, more time for creativity and long-term progress.
• take advantage of my already-existing Subversion repositories: that way, I can make quick fixes on my Web server, and have the changes transparently imported into my development computer, and the other way around. Turbocharged customers also benefit from this, because I run a bleeding edge Turbocharged copy on each of my sites.
• be error-proof: if something fails, I want to know why it failed. If a file changes, I’d like to know when, in what way and why. I simply can’t take any downtime.

Can this be done? The answer is yes. I know it because I just invested six hours to make it happen.

And you can do it too. Be forewarned: this guide requires learning about new software.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 2:38 and is filed under Free software, Linux, My journey towards Web consolidation, Software bacán, Turbocharged, Tutorials, Yo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.