Usage

Note

For full functionality you need to have FTP Deploy Server installed in your project, otherwise you can manage your deploys in admin page. For further informations visit installation section.

Important

It’s important to always use non fast forward git merge to your deploy branch! Otherwise POST Hook has no information about commits included in merge.

git merge --no-ff

Login

Login screen for FTP Deploy Server application. Page is available at:

/ftpdeploy/

Dashboard

The Main Dashboard page is available at:

/ftpdeploy/dashboard/
The dashboard allows you to manage all of your services from one page. All failing services are placed on the top of the list, to make easy navigate to failed deploys.
A screenshot is available in the Other section.
If service is deploying, status icon is changed to animated cog.

Service

Service is one repository-to-ftp configuration.

Add Service

To add new service click Add Service button on the Service dashboard page or visit:

/ftpdeploy/service/add

The Add Service form includes sections with fields listed below. Please read the following instructions in order to fill out the form correctly:

FTP Settings

Host: FTP server host
Username: FTP server username
Password: FTP server password
Path: path to the root directory of your project

Repository

Source: Source of repository (Bitbucket or Github)
Respository Name: Name of the repository to deploy. After you choose source, the list is populated dynamically from your repository account
Respository Slug: Slug of your Repository Name. This field is populated dynamically by using ‘slugify’ on the repository name
Branch: Branch name for deploy service

Notification

Notification: Notification set using by service.

Security

Security Key: 30 character alpha-numeric, unique, random generated string. Security Key is used to create repository hook.

During saving process, all values are validated. The following checks are performed:

  • FTP hostname
  • FTP login credentials
  • FTP path
  • Repository login credentials
  • Repository slug name (if exists on repository list)
  • Repository branch
  • Repository hook

All services will fail their first validation, as no POST hook will exist yet. You will be prompted to add the service hook by the error message. All issues are listed under status section in Manage Service page.

Note

Repository POST hook is required. It provides information about pushed git commits, along with branch name, which is used in the deploy process. You can manage this manually on the repository page if you need to. The validation process respects all changes you have made directly on the repository site as well.

Manage Service

To manage a service click the Manage button next to the service name or visit:

/ftpdeploy/service/{service_id}/manage

The manage page contains sections such as:

  • Statistics of service

    - POST Hook status (if not set up, Add Hook link is provided)
    - number of success deploys
    - number of fail deploys if exists
    - number of skiped deploys if exists
    - last deploy user
    - last deploy date

  • Notification

    Represent current notification settings. You can change notification by clicking Cog icon

  • Status

    Icon representing current status. If validation passes, it displays date of the latest status check, otherwise list of issues. In order to refresh the status you need to click status icon (the same applies for services list on dashboard page) or edit and save service.

    Note

    Status is not refreshed automatically because of expense of validation process. Usually takes up to 15 seconds to go through all validation points.

  • Restore Deploys (if any of deploys has failed)

    List of failing deploys for service in chronological order. The list provides the following details:

    - Deploy date
    - Deploy user
    - Deploy commits (commit message, commit user, commit raw node)
    - Restorable flag
    - Status

    If the list contain deploys that you don’t want to restore you can skip them by clicking the Skip button.

    Warning

    Skipping deploys may cause inconsistent data between your repository and FTP files or may fail to restore deploys.

    Example: if you skip a deploy with commit that creates a new file, and next deployment include commit that attempts to remove this file, the entire restore process would fail because of trying remove a file that actually doesn’t exist.

    Restoring deploys is described in the Restore Failed Deploys section.

  • Recent Deploys

    List of recent deploys. List mirror Logs filtered by current service.

  • If service is deploying or has deploy in the queue, progress bar is presented to display current status. Restore deploy is locket at this time as well.

Edit Service

To edit service click Edit button next to the service name or visit:

/ftpdeploy/service/{service_id}/edit

Edit page provides the same functionality as the Add Service page. If you need to load list of your repositories again, you need to reset Source drop down list, and choose option again.

After you press submit, service data goes through the validation process again, and redirect you to the Manage Service page

Restore Failed Deploys

If some deploy has failed, the service has an opportunity to restore it. It’s possible by capturing payload data from POST Hook and storing the data before a deployment is performed. The restoring process works as follows:

Restoring process

- Find first failed and not skipped deploy
- Built the restore tree, since first fail deploy up to the most recent deploy (omit skip deploys)
- Build new payload data based on restore tree
- Build commits information and files diff from new payload
- After click restore send new payload to deploy (as it would be a normal POST Hook), remove old deploys included in restore, and store new payload.

In order to restore deploys you need to click Restore Deploys on Manage Service page. That will bring the popup window with information about the restore such as :

- Number of commits included in restore along with details (commit message, commit user, raw node)
- File diff (New Files, Modified Files, Removed Files)

To run restore process you need to press Restore button.

Note

If your restore keep failing you can manage this manually. As you never lose deploys and commits information you can rely on File diff even after failed restore. You can just transfer and remove all relevant files included in File diff and skip all failed deploys. That help you keep your data consistent.

Notifications

Configurable sets of notifications.

Add/Edit Notification

To add new notification click Add Notification button on the Notification dashboard page or visit:

/ftpdeploy/notification/add

You can add emails as many as you like and choose what kind of notification they going to receive. In addition there are two extra options as follow:

deploy_user: user who make an deploy
commit_user: email list of users who made a commit(s) included in deploy

In order to edit notification you can click Edit button next to notification name or visit:

/ftpdeploy/{notification_id}/edit

Edit Notification screen provide same functionality as Add Notification page.

Email Templates

The email notification system provides html and text templates that can be overriden if you wish. In order to do that you need to create your own templates for success and fail notification separately:

/ftp_deploy/email/email_success.html
/ftp_deploy/email/email_success.txt

/ftp_deploy/email/email_fail.html
/ftp_deploy/email/email_fail.txt

All templates are rendered with the following context information:

Success Template
- {{service}} object
- {{host}} of the current website (where the email came from)
- {{commits_info}} in format [[‘commit message’,’commit user’,’raw node’],[...]]
- {{files_added}} , {{files_modified}}, {{files_removed}} in format [‘file_name_1’, ‘file_name_2’, ...]
Fail Template
- {{service}} object
- {{host}} of the current website (where the email came from)
- {{error}} message of the exception

Logs

In order to see logs page you need to click Log button on the top of the page or visit:

/ftpdeploy/log

Logs provide information about all activity in the FTP Deploy application.

In addition log list contain information about number of commits included in deploy. If you need to see more details about included commits, you can click the commits number (commit message, commit user, raw node).