Deployer is an open-source deployment tool for PHP projects — specifically designed to automate, standardize, and securely deploy applications like Laravel, Symfony, Magento, WordPress, or any custom PHP apps.

🚀 What Makes Deployer Special?

• It’s a CLI tool, written in PHP.

• You define your deployment process in a deploy.php configuration file with clearly defined tasks.

• It supports zero-downtime deployment using symbolic links (symlinks).

• It supports multi-environment deployments (e.g., staging, production).

🛠️ Typical Deployer Workflow

Install Deployer via Composer:

composer require deployer/deployer --dev

Generate a config template:

vendor/bin/dep init

Configure deploy.php, e.g., for Laravel:

host('my-server.com')
    ->set('deploy_path', '/var/www/myproject')
    ->set('branch', 'main');

task('deploy', [
    'deploy:prepare',
    'deploy:vendors',
    'artisan:migrate',
    'deploy:publish',
]);

Deploy your app:

vendor/bin/dep deploy production

🔁 What Happens Under the Hood?

Deployer:

• Connects to the server via SSH

• Clones your Git repo into a new release directory

• Installs Composer dependencies

• Runs custom tasks (e.g., php artisan migrate)

• Updates the symlink to point to the new release (current)

• Removes old releases if configured

📦 Benefits of Deployer

SSH (Secure Shell) is a network protocol that establishes an encrypted connection between two computers. It is mainly used for securely logging into remote systems (e.g., servers) and executing commands.

Key Features of SSH

• Security: Data is transmitted in an encrypted form, protecting against eavesdropping and manipulation.
• Authentication: Access can be granted via passwords or SSH keys.
• Tunneling Capability: Can be used to securely forward network traffic.
• File Transfer: Allows file transfers between systems using SCP or SFTP.

Basic SSH Commands

• Connect to a remote server:

ssh username@server-ip

• Transfer files using SCP:

scp file.txt username@server-ip:/destination-folder/

• Add your public SSH key (for passwordless login):

ssh-copy-id username@server-ip

SSH is commonly used by developers and system administrators to manage servers or establish secure connections for other applications.