Deploying Wordpress on Dotcloud

First, get a copy of all the files of this package in the root of your Wordpress directory:

cd wordpress
git clone https://github.com/qpleple/wordpress-on-dotcloud
mv wordpress-on-dotcloud/* .
chmod +x postinstall

Then push to Dotcloud:

dotcloud create myblog
dotcloud push myblog
dotcloud push myblog # dotcloud issue: database not ready at first push

Note that after the first push, remote wp-content/ will not be overwritten by a new push:

uploaded static files will be kept
new local plugins and themes will be pushed remotely
modifications to existing plugins and themes will be ignored remotely

Under the hood

The package contains:

The dotcloud.yml required to push to Dotcloud declaring 2 services:
```
 www:
     type: php
 db:
     type: mysql
```
The nginx.conf file telling Nginx to redirect everything to Wordpress front controller as Dotcloud does not support .htaccess files (included in Wordpress):
```
 try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
```

The postinstall script that is a post-install hook and will be executed by Dotcloud after each push. It is calling the scripts in the dotcloud-scripts/ directory:

 # Reads environment.json and config MySQL values in wp-config.php
 ./dotcloud-scripts/feed-wp-config.php
 
 # Move wp-content to make it persistent
 ./dotcloud-scripts/persist-wp-content.sh

The feed-wp-config.php script (executed by the post-install hook) that gets the parameters of the just created MySQL Dotcloud service, write them into the wp-config.php file and create the database if it does not exist. If wp-config.php does not exist, it will create it from wp-config-sample.php.

 if [ -d ~/data/wp-content ]; then
     mv -n ~/current/wp-content/plugins/* ~/data/wp-content/plugins
     mv -n ~/current/wp-content/themes/* ~/data/wp-content/themes
     rm -rf ~/current/wp-content
 else
     mkdir -p ~/data/wp-content
     mv ~/current/wp-content ~/data
 fi

 ln -s ~/data/wp-content ~/current/wp-content

The persist-wp-content.sh script (executed by the post-install hook) that persists the wp-content/ directory containing uploads, installed plugins and themes. It moves the directory from ~/code/wp-content it to ~/data/wp-content and makes a symlink to it, because ~/code will be overwritten at each push.

More about themes and plugins updates

If it is not the first push, the persist-wp-content.sh executes:

mv -n ~/current/wp-content/plugins/* ~/data/wp-content/plugins
mv -n ~/current/wp-content/themes/* ~/data/wp-content/themes

The -n option means: do not overwrite an existing file. It means that plugins added in the local Wordpress will be added remotely. But if the remote Wordpress has already a plugin/theme, the local version of this plugin/theme will be ignored during the push (even if it has been modified on the local Wordpress).