Beam

Beam is a command line utility for deploying websites to servers. It allows you to sync files between a version control system and a remote host, and run shell commands at fixed stages to further automate the deployment process. Beam works best (and by default) using rsync over ssh, though it also has support for intelligent deployment through SFTP and FTP.

Installation

$ git clone git@github.com:heyday/beam.git
$ cd beam
$ composer install
$ php ./bin/installer

Updating

$ beam self-update

Configuration

Beam requires a config file named beam.json to know where to sync your files. Typically, each project you use Beam with will have its own beam.json file, as each project will have its own deployment location(s). When a config file is not found in the current directory, Beam will backtrack through parent directories and use the first config it finds.

To generate a blank config with a valid schema run:

$ beam init

For further configuration, see the documentation for the beam.json file.

Basic beam.json

At a minimum, to use Beam at least one server needs to be defined.

{
	"servers": {
		"live": {
			"host": "some.host.com",
			"webroot": "/home/user/www"
		}
	}
}

Usage examples

Given a valid configuration file here are some common ways to use Beam:

$ beam up live                   # regular sync from git
$ beam up staging --dry-run      # don't offer to sync the files, just display changes
$ beam up live --no-prompt       # skips the summary of files to be changed and doesn't prompt for confirmation
$ beam up staging-2 -v           # verbose (see the output of commands)
$ beam up live --no-delete       # don't delete files on target that are not present on local
$ beam up myserver -p somepath   # only sync the specified path
$ beam up live --command-prompt  # prompt on non-required commands
$ beam up vm -t sometag          # include commands tagged with "sometag"
$ beam up live --working-copy    # sync from the working-copy not a vcs archive
$ beam up live -r HEAD~2         # sync 2 back from HEAD
$ beam up live -r def3c6d57      # sync a specific commit
$ beam down live                 # dowload to working copy
$ beam down staging -p assets    # dowload a specific folder to working copy

Help

FAQs

When I run beam I see something like "?? ???"

This means that you have detect_unicode=On in your php.ini. To fix this, open your php.ini (ensure it is your cli one) and make sure detect_unicode=Off is present.

When I run beam I see no output

If you are using suhosin, you will need to add phar to the whitelist of allowed executor url schemes. To fix this, open your php.ini (ensure it is your cli one) and make sure that suhosin.executor.include.whitelist=phar is present.

IRC

Help is available at #beam on freenode.

Contributing

This project follows the standards defined in:

• PSR-0
• PSR-1
• PSR-2

Unit testing

$ composer install
$ phpunit

License

MIT, see LICENSE.