Heat template to deploy a single server running a PHP app under apache

If you're new to PHP, the Getting Started page can walk you through the basics of PHP and it's uses.

The private key provided in the passwords section can be used to login as root via SSH. We have an article on how to use these keys with Mac OS X and Linux as well as Windows using PuTTY.

If your deployment has multiple application servers, deployment tools such as Capistrano, Phing, or even git can simplify the deployment process. It's best to evaluate all options independently to determine which tool works best for your use case. There are other methods for deployment including using configuration and infrastructure management tools like Chef.

This deployment was stood up using chef-solo. Once the deployment is up, chef will not run again, so it is safe to modify configurations.

PHP was installed using the packaged version for your operating system. Newer versions of PHP will be available with newer versions of the operating system. We recommend using the packaged version as opposed to a source based installation for easier long term managmement, patching, and supportability.

All web content will be served by Apache. The configuration can be found in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled. The name of the configuration file will be the same as the name of the site provided as a part of this deployment. Any changes made to this configuration will require a restart of Apache. By default, the Document Root for your site will be /var/www/vhosts/application/.

Memcached is installed to handle object caching. By default, Memcached is configured to listen on localhost, port 11211. Memcached is most commonly used to cache object information so that they can be called from memory as opposed to querying a backend database. The configuration can be found in /etc/memcached.conf. Any changes made to the configuration file will require a the memcached service to be restarted.

MySQL has been installed on a Cloud Database instance.

There are several options for adding support to PHP. We recommend leveraging as many packaged modules as possible. Use the system package manager to search for an install modules. Here's an example of how to search for availalbe modules of PHP 5 on Ubuntu:

root@app01:~# apt-cache search php5-
php5-cgi - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language (CGI binary)
php5-cli - command-line interpreter for the php5 scripting language
php5-common - Common files for packages built from the php5 source
php5-curl - CURL module for php5
php5-dbg - Debug symbols for PHP5
php5-dev - Files for PHP5 module development
php5-gd - GD module for php5
php5-gmp - GMP module for php5
php5-ldap - LDAP module for php5
php5-mysql - MySQL module for php5
...

Once you find the appropriate package, the package manager can be used to handle the installation. Here's an example on how we would install the php5-gd package on Ubuntu:

apt-get install -y php5-gd

If you're looking to install something that is not found in the default repositories, you can use PECL, PEAR, or phpize to complete the installation. Follow any instructions provided with the application you are installing for more detail on how to best install the necessary modules or extensions.

Since the PHP installation was done using the package manager for the operating system, the update can also be performed by the package manager. If you're looking for a different major or minor version of PHP, you may want to consider running a different version of the operating system. Most operating systems lock in specific major, minor, and release versions, and they only release updates for bugs or security fixes.

• A Heat provider that supports the following:
  • OS::Heat::RandomString
  • OS::Heat::SwiftSignal
  • OS::Heat::SwiftSignalHandle
  • OS::Nova::KeyPair
  • OS::Nova::Server
• An OpenStack username, password, and tenant id.
• python-heatclient >= v0.2.8:

pip install python-heatclient

We recommend installing the client within a Python virtual environment.

Parameters can be replaced with your own values when standing up a stack. Use the -P flag to specify a custom parameter.

• server_hostname: Server Name (Default: php)
• image: Required: Server image used for all servers that are created as a part of this deployment. (Default: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) (PVHVM))
• flavor: Required: Rackspace Cloud Server flavor to use. The size is based on the amount of RAM for the provisioned server. (Default: 4 GB General Purpose v1)
• revision: Optional: Git Branch/Ref to deploy. Default: HEAD (Default: HEAD)
• packages: Optional: Additional system packages to install. Must be formatted as as a python list: ['package1', 'package2', 'etc'] (Default: '')
• repo: Optional: URL to your git repository. Use the https syntax for public repositories, use git@ syntax for private repositories. (Default: '')
• url: URL for site (Default: example.com)
• deploy_key: Optional: If you specified a private repository, provide your private deploy key here. (Default: '')
• destination: Path to setup your application on your servers. (Default: /var/www/vhosts/application)
• public: The public facing directory of your application relative to the destination. (Default: /)
• http_port: HTTP Port (Default: 80)
• https_port: HTTPS Port (Default: 443)
• memcached_size: Memcached memory size limit (Default: 128)

Once a stack comes online, use heat output-list to see all available outputs. Use heat output-show <OUTPUT NAME> to get the value of a specific output.

• private_key: SSH Private Key
• server_ip: Server IP
• mysql_root_password: MySQL Root Password

For multi-line values, the response will come in an escaped form. To get rid of the escapes, use echo -e '<STRING>' > file.txt. For vim users, a substitution can be done within a file using %s/\\n/\r/g.