What is a good way to set up a dev, staging and production workflow with wordpress

Question

Wordpress presents some challenges since it tends to keep too much in the database, making it hard to move from server to server.

What are some other issues to look out for?

What was your workflow like?

Answer 1

I have a single WordPress install set up to power multiple domains on my development server. Plugin and theme files are also shared, so upgrading is a one-click process for all blogs.

I use Apache VirtualHosts to map multiple domains to the same document root, and sprinkle a little magic in the main wp-config.php to dynamically set DB_NAME, based on the current host (I can post code if you like).

For working locally, I just have a MySQL user with root privileges, and use it for all my databases (not recommended on a production server!).

My local domains are named appropriate to the real domains, but with a fake TLD. So working with example.com, I set up a VirtualHost example.dev.

When I'm ready to go live, I use HeidiSQL to make a copy of the development database, then replace all occurrences of example.dev with example.com.

The copied database is now ready for the production install. Mirror your local WordPress install on the production server (copying over plugins, uploads and themes), and use either HeidiSQL (recommended) or phpMyAdmin to import the prepared database.

UPDATE

Naturally, if you make changes to one, and then copy everything to the other, then you will lose any changes you had made on the other. This goes not just for WordPress, but for almost anything else in life itself!

If I ever need to make major changes once the site is live (and by major, I mean changes that should not be carried out on a production server), I do the reverse process of the above (copy everything from production to dev), make the changes, then do the reverse again.

Answer 2

This Same Question was asked and answered on WordPress.stackexchange. It contains detailed information and best practices for rapid deployment from dev to production.

Edit

This is the same answer I added at WordPress Answers.

There may be a better ways that I am missing but I am going to give you 2 options:

1.Use XML Export to export your new posts and comments. Then use the WordPress Importer to import the new posts and comments back into the dev database

It's best to import into dev then move the database over to production because when you import it will download all the new media files from production.

In the meantime production has changed(new posts, new comments, etc.)

This would solve your problem of bringing in any changed content.

2. Use the INSERT IGNORE INTO MySql command to add the new tables from dev. or the REPLACE command to overwrite duplicate rows in the same table.

Before using MySql make a backup of both databases and move the gz database to the production server and upload the dump (change the name of dev if it's the same as production.

INSERT IGNORE INTO `_wp_production_db`.`wp_cool_plugin_options`
SELECT *
FROM `_wp_dev_db`.`wp_cool_plugin_options`

I'm not comfortable with MySql commands so I would go with option 1.