Deployer 7, rsync, cwd

[teal-bauer]

I am running deployer 7 within a docker container. The container has the workdir set to /var/www/html/htdocs, but the Git repository root is /var/www/html. I cannot find a way to run rsync relative to the Git repository root - I tried combinations of cd, chdir, runLocally(...), to no avail. Also setting rsync_src does not seem to work.

This is especially painful in the push recipe, which just won't work because git returns filenames like 'htdocs/index.php' but rsync looks for that relative to 'htdocs/' and fails.

[antonmedv]

I didn't get the question. runLocally('rsync path/ to/');

[teal-bauer]

Well, I was making a recipe similar to the packaged push recipe which calls upload(), so I cannot influence the rsync call directly (and I don't really want to duplicate more code). A plain upload() should have the same issue though - no way to set its working directory. I can monkey patch the DEPLOYER_ROOT but that seems wrong, too.

[antonmedv]

I not fully understand the problem. Maybe just reconfigure Apache?

[teal-bauer]

Hmm ok, let me try again :)

We have a docker container with this minimal Dockerfile:

FROM php:8.0.28
RUN set -ex; \
    wget -qO /usr/local/bin/deployer https://github.com/deployphp/deployer/releases/download/v7.3.1/deployer.phar; \
    chmod +x /usr/local/bin/deployer
VOLUME [ "/var/www/html" ]
WORKDIR /var/www/html/htdocs/

Mounted into the /var/www/html volume is a Git repository with the following structure:

.
htdocs/deploy.php
var/
...other files...

I run deployer push staging within the container:

docker run --rm -it our-image deployer push staging

Deployer starts with CWD /var/www/html/htdocs, where deploy.php also lies. But the Git root is one directory up from that.

I defined a task push:all like this:

task('push:all', static function () {
  $local_base = trim(runLocally("git rev-parse --show-toplevel"));
  $files = explode("\n", runLocally("git ls-files --others --modified --exclude-standard", ['cwd' => $local_base]));

  if (count($files) == 0 || empty($files[0])) {
    throw new Deployer\Exception\GracefulShutdownException('No new or modified files in work directory, nothing to do');
  }

  info('uploading:');
  foreach ($files as $file) {
    writeln(" - $file");
  }

  upload(
    $files,
    '{{current_path}}',
    ['progress_bar' => false, 'options' => ['--relative']]
  );

  // Mark this release as dirty.
  run("echo '{{user}}' > {{current_path}}/DIRTY_RELEASE");
  info('done');
});

Basically copying the push function that ships with deployer, with two differences: 1) it also catches git-untracked files, and 2) it always examines the git repository root instead of starting from DEPLOYER_ROOT.

Here's the issue:

• DEPLOYER_ROOT and CWD point to the htdocs/ subdirectory of the repo
• There is no way that I found to tell upload(...) to use a different working directory
• So the upload() call fails because git ls-files returns repo-relative names (e.g. htdocs/deploy.php), but upload(...) expects paths relative to DEPLOYER_ROOT

There are some workarounds, but they all feel icky, namely:

1. Override workdir in docker call (option -w): Works, but user has to remember it, annoying typing
2. Change WORKDIR in Dockerfile: Works, but annoying for all other dev work which is almost always concerned with files in htdocs/
3. Construct my own rsync call: Works, but messy and annoying, would have to duplicate even more code from Deployer to get it right
4. Clobber DEPLOYER_ROOT from within the task (getenv/putenv): Works but ... well. It feels like manipulating internal state.
5. Override DEPLOYER_ROOT externally (e.g. by passing an env to Docker): See 1)

I would hope/expect that upload would take a cwd option or there is an explicit way to set the working_dir otherwise. The CLI documentation seems to imply that all commands could take a cwd arg, but in reality it's only runLocally. within() also doesn't work for upload(). Alternatively, having a function to explicitly set/override the local working dir would be ok too.

[antonmedv]

It seems like you have quite a detailed understanding of the issue at hand and have tried a number of different potential solutions. Unfortunately, the upload() function in Deployer doesn't support changing the working directory directly.

Although it is not ideal, the approach of manipulating DEPLOYER_ROOT (your option 4) might be the most straightforward in this case if you want to stick with using Deployer's built-in functions. Despite the fact that it feels like manipulating internal state, it would provide the pathing that the upload() function needs to operate correctly.

Here's how you could manipulate DEPLOYER_ROOT from within the task:

task('push:all', static function () {
  $local_base = trim(runLocally("git rev-parse --show-toplevel"));
  $files = explode("\n", runLocally("git ls-files --others --modified --exclude-standard", ['cwd' => $local_base]));

  if (count($files) == 0 || empty($files[0])) {
    throw new Deployer\Exception\GracefulShutdownException('No new or modified files in work directory, nothing to do');
  }

  // Change DEPLOYER_ROOT
  set('deploy_path', $local_base);

  info('uploading:');
  foreach ($files as $file) {
    writeln(" - $file");
  }

  upload(
    $files,
    '{{current_path}}',
    ['progress_bar' => false, 'options' => ['--relative']]
  );

  // Mark this release as dirty.
  run("echo '{{user}}' > {{current_path}}/DIRTY_RELEASE");
  info('done');
});

I understand your frustration, however. This seems like a missing feature in Deployer and you might want to consider submitting an issue or even a pull request to the Deployer project to support a cwd option in the upload() function, if such a feature hasn't been implemented already after my knowledge cutoff.

[teal-bauer]

I don't know your knowledge cutoff ^^ but the code ChatGPT generated is wrong, because deploy_path refers to the target system. Like I said, what needs to be done is a song-and-dance with putenv, like so:

  $old_root = getenv('DEPLOYER_ROOT') ?: __DIR__;
  putenv("DEPLOYER_ROOT={$local_base}");
  upload(
    $files,
    '{{current_path}}',
    ['progress_bar' => false, 'options' => ['--relative']]
  );
  putenv("DEPLOYER_ROOT={$old_root}");

While I don't mind using ChatGPT to formulate responses, I think removing the obvious giveaways like "my knowledge cutoff" and maybe sanity checking the answer might be useful... ;)

[antonmedv]

Nice 👌🏻 well, chatgpt answers right up to 90%))