Wordpress Dev Kit

This dev kit provides a fast, standardized way to get started building and managing a custom Wordpress site for your clients. You can develop and test locally, and deploy to your server with just one command.

Local Installation

First, start by cloning this repository locally. Rename the directory to whatever you want to call your project.

$ git clone https://github.com/mpdaugherty/wordpress-dev-kit.git
$ mv wordpress-dev-kit <project_name>
$ cd <project_name>

To set up the local install, make sure mysql is running, then execute the init script and answer its questions:

$ bin/init.sh
What is your host name? (e.g. the @xyz.com when you SSH)
  example.com
What is your remote username?
  example
Where is your SSH key file? ~/.ssh/id-rsa
What is the URL at which you will install this blog? (No http/s://)
  www.example.com
Who is your site's admin?
  admin@example.com
What is your desired MySQL DB Name?
  example_wp
What is your desired DB user name?
  ex_wp_user
What is your desired DB password?

You need to run this SQL (saved in wp_setup_local_sql.sql):

create database example_wp; create user 'ex_wp_user'@'localhost' identified by 'a'; GRANT ALL ON example_wp.* to 'DB_USERNAME'@'localhost'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

If you'd like to execute this immediately, enter your MySQL root username (otherwise, enter nothing):

Developing your theme

Create your custom theme in the theme/ folder. To view your test site, open the test_wp folder in your webbrowser. Be sure to visit /wp-admin to log in to install your theme, create test posts, etc.

Deployment

Pre-deployment set up

You need to set up your DNS records so that your desired URL points to your host.

Your host also needs to have apache installed with mod-php enabled.

This has only been tested on Ubuntu. If you are using a different distro for your server and find it does not work, let me know; I’ll try to fix it.

Deploy script usage

To use the included deployment script, you must have python and fabric installed.

Then, while in your project root directory, just run

fab deploy

What it does

The fabric script will log into your remote host and create a folder for wordpress at var/www/project-name

Inside there, it installs wordpress and your custom theme.

After that, it installs a new apache virtualhost corresponding to the URL you decided upon before. This is located in /etc/apache2/sites-available/<your url>.conf

Finally, it reloads apache so that the new site will be enabled.

Upgrading

Upgrading the deployment scripts, etc. is simple; Just pull from this repository:

git pull upstream

You should manage upgrades to your installed Wordpress version and plugins through the Wordpress web interface as usual.

Feedback

Add bug reports and feature requests as issues in this github repository (and add a patch if you’re feeling generous!)

For other feedback, questions, etc., you can contact me at wp@mpdaugherty.com.