This article covers the original deployment method known as “Quick Deploy”. A new deployment method has been released called “DirectDeploy” that does not require an FTP client and can simplify most deployments. Click here for more information about the newest “DirectDeploy” feature.
Quick Deploy can make deploying your development website to a live server extremely easy. In this post, I’ll show you how to use Quick Deploy and the steps to get your site working on a compatible live server quickly.
However, the feature is labeled beta because it has yet to be fully tested with a variety of hosting providers. Not all hosting providers are created equal and Quick Deploy does have a PHP 5.3 minimum requirement. Please be sure to post in our dedicated forum about Quick Deploy if you have any questions or feel free to let us know about your success with Quick Deploy. We’re sure the community would like know the name of hosting providers where Quick Deploy works (and we’d like to know where it does not) if you are willing to reveal that too. We’d like to hear from you!
I’ll start by summarizing the three easy steps to use Quick Deploy followed by a more detailed explanation and step-by-step instructions below:
- Export your website using DesktopServer and upload the ZIP archive to your server.
- Upload the quick-deploy.php script from DesktopServer’s application folder.
- Visit the quick-deploy.php script in your web browser.
Step 1 – Export Your Website
Notice: DesktopServer version 3.5.0 features enhanced migration compatibilities. This new functionality supports migration of proprietary theme and plugin settings via an official “DesktopServer for WordPress” plugin. Starting with DesktopServer version 3.5.0, please refer to this post in lieu of Step 1. It is highly recommended that you upgrade to DesktopServer version 3.5.0 for more viable live server deployments.
Begin by using DesktopServer’s export feature. Start by selecting the “Export or import a website” option and click next, followed by the “Export a WordPress website archive” option and click next. You will be presented with the following screen featuring a number of fields (click the thumbnail for a larger picture).
Select the website you wish to export from the drop down combo box. You have the option of filling out the database credentials of your live host’s database server. If you don’t have this information, you can proceed by following WordPress.org’s famous 5 minute install to obtain it or an even easier approach would be to simply overwrite your existing working WordPress installation. Almost any version of WordPress will do because just having a working WordPress installation to overwrite means you can skip all of these fields and just click next. You will have eliminated most of the guess work as you will know that your host is capable of running a copy of WordPress. The only remaining step is running your copy WordPress. Quick Deploy can read the settings of your host’s existing working WordPress website and overwrite it, deploying your site fast.
Almost every hosting provider already includes a shortcut to getting WordPress up and running with just a click of the mouse. A simple search on YouTube reveals dozens of ways to get WordPress up and running using the automated tools provided by most hosting provider control panels. Whether it is via QuickInstall, Fantastico, SimpleScripts, or Site Software just to name a few. Covering the topic of which way to install WordPress is a little beyond the scope of our Quick Deploy purpose. We just need an existing running copy of WordPress on the target. Suffice it to say, obtain the database credentials or just skip the fields and ensure that you have the most recent WordPress installation as possible on your destination website.
Clicking next will provide you with one last important option: Site Name. Make sure you use the site name that matches your working WordPress website which must be a valid registered domain name. You must include the top-level domain (i.e. .com, .org, .info, etcetera) in the Site Name field. Do not include the http:// as we are only interested in the fully qualified domain name with which you wish your visitors to use to reach your WordPress website (i.e. www.example.com).
Step 2 – Upload to Your Website
After exporting your website, you will want to upload the resulting ZIP archive file (i.e. www.example.com.zip) along with the quick-deploy.php script file that can be found below. Download and unzip the quick-deploy zip archive. You should upload the quick-deploy.php file (as a PHP file, not zip).
http://serverpress.com/solutions/quick-deploy.zip
Upload both the zip archive and the quick-deploy.php script to your live server. If you have a working version of WordPress on your site, ensure that the wp-config.php file is present and within the same folder as your website archive ZIP file and the quick-deploy.php script file. The quick-deploy.php script will first look for the wp-config.php file and use the database credentials found within the script to deploy your WordPress website. Note that your existing working WordPress website will be overwritten, including the database and WordPress files. If you do not have a working copy of WordPress on your live site, then you should have supplied the database credentials in step 1. In both cases, Quick Deploy will overwrite any existing files and database content.
Step 3 – Visit the quick-deploy.php script
Visit the quick-deploy.php script using your web browser. For instance, if you have a WordPress website with the name of www.example.com, you will want to visit http://www.example.com/quick-deploy.php in your web browser. You should then see the Quick Deploy screen that follows:
Next, you will need to type the filename of your website’s ZIP archive file (for example, www.example.com.zip). Be sure not to rename the ZIP archive file prior to uploading as the name of the ZIP file must match the name you specified at the time you created it using the DesktopServer export feature (this is a known issue). The last step is to press the deploy button. Note that your existing website (if any) will be erased. You should receive one last prompt asking you to confirm. Click OK to proceed.
You will have to wait depending on the size of your website archive. Be sure to keep your web browser open and do not navigate away from the page while Quick Deploy unpacks your website archive. Any errors that occur should appear within the large text box area, otherwise you should see the text “Done!” if only for a second before being transferred to your site’s home page.
If Quick Deploy succeeded, you will know right away by seeing your website’s home page. Quick Deploy should have also cleaned up after itself, deleting both the quick-deploy.php script file and your website archive ZIP file. A temporary folder would have been created with the same name of your website archive file and that should have been deleted as well. For security purposes, you should verify that the folders and files are no longer present on your site. Lastly, because this is still a beta feature, you should thoroughly review the integrity of your newly deployed website for any potential errors or incompatibilities.
While there are other ways to deploy your website, DesktopServer’s export feature can prepare your database and files for easy deployment. Quick Deploy makes the process even quicker by allowing you to deploy your site in three easy steps. Enjoy!
Great tutorial, Stephen! I found it to be straightforward and well-documented.
I have an The requested URL /p/Home.html was not found on this server. fault.
band-plan.be works, but not http://www.band-plan.be/, good tutorial though
Quick Deploy Bombs Out
I swear the zip archive is there. I copied and pasted the filename of same into quick-deploy.php
Fatal error: Class 'ZipArchive' not found in /home/iamstand/public_html/quick-deploy.php on line 239Hello Flash,
I’m sorry to hear that. For additional support (and if okay) let us know who your hosting provider is in our QuickDeploy forum at http://serverpress.com/forum/premium-support/quick-deploy/
Regards,
Stephen
I had the same issue and am using Dreamhost
Sigh. The quick deploy did not work for me. The data seemed to be there, but the theme styling was not.
Does my zip file need to be the same name as the domain name?
I’m totally at a loss..
Yes. As stated, do not rename the zip file that you produce. For additional support, please post in the forum at http://serverpress.com/forum/premium-support/quick-deploy/
Be sure to include your OS and version! Thanks
Interesting. So looks like the Quick Deploy imports tables into the database and updates (serialized?) URL’s as well, plus overwrites wp-content. This is stuff i do manually, but if it saves time and brain-drain might be nice!
Hi John, the scrubbing (search & replace) actually occurs inside DesktopServer’s export routine. It also updates hardcoded URLs in JavaScript fies, HTML, XML, etc. and is included in the ‘copy’ website feature. This makes it really easy to template your sites to get your clients rolling even faster!
This is awesome. The best $50 we’ve ever spent!! I now have the rest of my weekend free.
My live site on GoDaddy currently has a “coming soon” theme that I would like to keep while the client clicks around the development site to get a feel for it. What are the steps to install to a sub-folder?
DesktopServer will mirror the configuration from your development server. If you’d like to move the WordPress portion of your website to a subfolder, use the phpMyAdmin interface to adjust the wp_options table for siteurl and home or use WordPress’ admin screen for General Settings to adjust these two fields. Then move the site to a corresponding sub folder. This will work in most cases, but some plugins and hardcoded URL references may need to also be update. For additional support please post in our premium member forum at http://serverpress.com/forums
use WordPress’ admin screen for General Settings to adjust these two fields. Then move the site to a corresponding sub folder.
Pretty new at this… so to clarify:
change url’s to http://www.example.com then use “Export or import a website” option and click next, followed by the “Export a WordPress website archive” option ?
No. You’ll want to post your support question at http://serverpress.com/forums. Thank you.
Good tutorial, even better results. I had my VPS provider – GeekStorage – upgrade my server to PHP 5.3 (with no problems for my sites, or hosted clients WP sites). Followed the directions — voiià! The site appeared. Fantastic. I have done one via cPanel manually, but this is awesome. Thanks!
I highly recommend GeekStorage – http://www.geekstorage.com/aff/423 – (so much that I don’t hide affiliatiion). When decided to try the quick deploy—because I was in a hurry—they had my VPS configured with PHP 5.3 in 3 hours, after they first pointed out possible conflicts. I have the older Virtuozzo platform with CentOS. Will be adding a Xen cloud hosting server this year, too, I expect.
David
This is awesome! So easy and definitely quick. I had zero issues with it. Fabulous! I love it (can you tell – LOL?) .
I’ve been looking at purchasing ServerPress for months and I finally did. Now I’m asking myself, why did I wait this long??
~Annie
Works perfect!
Will this work for subdomains? i.e. sub.example.com?
Yes. You can create a development site with what ever sub.domain.dev you want. Quick Deploy will mirror the configuration onto your live server (this is for WordPress’ regular single site mode). You cannot deploy a single subdomain of a WordPress multisite network. For WordPress Multisite mode, Quick Deploy will deploy an entire multisite configuration with all sites at once.
Hi Stephen,
And how is your wonderful self?
I have just tried quick deploy and got Internal Server Error and to contact my host 123-reg.co.uk. While waiting on a reply from them, is there a manual straight forward method of deploying my locally developed website from DeskTopServer. I have not gotten any success with BackUpBuddy.
many regards
Abraham
Hello Abraham,
Thankfully you have many options! You can try one of our alternate export methods:
http://serverpress.com/tag/export
If you need assistance, you can try our Premium forum:
http://serverpress.com/forums
We can even help deploy your site for you by scheduling a deployment time; just send your request (available only to Premium members):
http://serverpress.com/contact-us or send your request to support@serverpress.com
We’ll send you a link to our easy supplemental request form to get your site live with your own hosting provider.
Used Quick Deploy to move a new site [ http://www.julianahall.com/ ] from my local machine to the host…smooth as silk, no problems at all…and VERY fast! Your tutorial here made the whole process very understandable and straightforward, too.
Thought I would let you know that, although you say there is a PHP 5.3 minimum requirement, my host only has PHP 5.2.17…but, as I say, no problem at all…it worked like a charm. As far as I can determine, there were also no errors in the site because of the Quick Deploy process…everything – WordPress, plugins, theme, content – was where it should be and worked perfectly from the get-go.
Also, I just want to let you know how much I appreciate DesktopServer…it has performed flawlessly, allowing me to develop and now migrate the site to the server, making development a breeze…a great product, more than worth the money.
THANK YOU!
Thanks for this Stephen. Just Stunning! No errors. (just for buddypress – copy config details from wp-config.php). Desktopserver is the complete package for multi-site installs.