Deploying with Velocity #

This page is for application creators who put a change live on a site served by Exponential Velocity. Velocity keeps the application in memory between requests, so a new class or setting only takes effect after a restart, and caches must be cleared in the right order. One command does all of it (7. Ship a PHP change with one command).

Contents #

1. The command
2. What it does, in order
3. Options
4. Template and stylesheet changes
5. After the deploy

The command #

./console exp:velocity deploy --dry-run --allow-root-user   # what it would do
./console exp:velocity deploy --allow-root-user             # the usual case
./console exp:velocity deploy --kernel --allow-root-user    # a kernel class was added or renamed

A real run prints PASS, FAIL or SKIP and the time for each step, stops at the first failure and exits with 1.

What it does, in order #

1. Extension autoloads (--kernel: kernel autoloads too).
2. INI caches, template, template-override, translation and design caches.
3. The engine archive, rebuilt only when kernel files changed (every file is parsed first, so a broken file stops the deploy before any server is touched).
4. PHP-FPM sees the new code: a reload only when OPcache does not revalidate by itself ([DeploySettings] PhpFpmReload).
5. Velocity restart; the new parent must answer.
6. Content, HTTP and template-block caches, then Velocity's response cache: last, so a page rendered by old code is never cached again.
7. Warm-up requests in the background ([DeploySettings] WarmUpURL[]).

Options #

Template and stylesheet changes #

Templates need no restart:

./console exp:cache clear --id=template --allow-root-user
./console exp:velocity cache clear --apply --allow-root-user

A new template file or override rule also needs template-override; a stylesheet needs --packer or the ezjscore-packer and template-block caches cleared.

After the deploy #

• ./console exp:velocity status: the new parent answers.
• Open a page of each type you changed, logged out and logged in.
• Watch var/log/error.log for a few minutes.
• A class referenced by settings must be deployed before the setting goes live, or workers that do not know it fail.

Related pages #

• A deployment pipeline
• Velocity engines: deploying a PHP change
• Velocity web server
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.