On a previous post I explained how to build SVN updater script in PHP. This works fine on hosts that allow the webserver runas user to access the subversion binaries, such as Dreamhost.

What if not?

Our favorite hosting provider Webdrive allows our ssh-user access to subversion but not the apache runas user.

What can we do?

In order to avoid being asked to update the working files for website xyz.com every change someone made -> we need a script that executes the command “svn up” via ssh on a remote server!

This script will be hosted locally and the access will be restricted.

Sounds good what are the problems?

Everyone, who ever tried to build a script that connects via SSH to a remote machine in PHP, knows the big question:

“How can I send the password?”

The answer is: “Not“

thanks to ssh key authentication.

Step by step (on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS) server:

1. log in to your local webserver [local-server] (the one that will runs the updater script)
2. find out what user apache runs as ‘ps aux | grep apache‘ -> [www-data]
3. log in as this user: ‘su www-data‘
4. create a ssh-key pair: ‘ssh-keygen‘
5. copy the public key to the remote server: ‘ssh-copy-id user@remote-server.com‘
6. enter your password when prompted
7. login to the remote server: ‘ssh user@remote-server.com‘ – you should not be asked for the password anymore -> if not make sure the file “~/.ssh/authorized_keys” has 644 permissions and try again

Thats it!

now all we need is the script:

<?php
exec("ssh user@remote-server.com svn up /home/user/xyz.com");

You can also make the site a parameter-variable by using

<?php
exec("ssh user@remote-server.com svn up /home/user/{$_GET['site']}");

This script should be password protected to avoid having the wrong people playing with it!

This should be easy to adapt for other Source Control systems, such as GIT, Mercurial, Bazaar etc…

The shortcut keys for refresh / hard (force) refresh on a Mac for Safari and Firefox:

Firefox

Refresh: Command+R
Hard refresh: Command+Shift+R

Safari

Refresh: Command+R
Clear the cache: Command + Option + E

*Command = Apple key

In our company we use Subversion for version control.

Using a GUI for Mac gives our more graphical team members easy access to common tasks, such as committing changed files to the repository.

However updating the working copy on a (test-) web server still requires knowlegde of a unix shell and having to log in and running it manually can be a full time position.

After doing some research I found the official PECL SVN bindings. These are still very experimental and a hussle to install.

So I decided to use the simplest solution that just executes a “svn up” on the server and does not require any server-side modification:

exec("svn up ".dirname(__FILE__), $out, $ret);

Which serves perfectly for this purpose.

Wrapping this line in a (30secs) self refreshing file makes sure the working copy stays updated.

And the best thing is:
it does not require anything, except installed svn binaries that are executable for the apache user and write access to the webroot.
Download

“How can I downsize large product images but not enlarge small images?”

simple as:

syntax:

$this->helper('catalog/image')
->init($_product, 'image')
->keepFrame(false)
->constrainOnly(true)
->resize(650);

example:

$this->helper('catalog/image')
->init($_product, 'image')
->keepFrame(false)
->constrainOnly(true)
->resize(650);

explanation:

$this->helper(‘catalog/image’)

loads the ‘Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image’ located at ‘app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Helper/Image.php’

(NOTE: it only handles instances of ‘Mage_Catalog_Model_Product’)

[why not categories? - they can have images too!!]

Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image::init($_product, ‘image’)

loads the actual product in the helper

Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image::keepFrame(false)

avoids getting the small image in original size on a solid background color presented (can be handy not to break some layouts)

Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image::constrainOnly(false)

avoids getting small images bigger

Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image::resize(600)

sets the desired width to 600px and the height accordingly (proportional by default)

Check ‘app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Helper/Image.php’ for more handy methods!

Hope this helps someone.