Orchard cms multiple deployment environments

Question

I've recently started to develop some sites using orchard, which is great so far, however I'm a bit confused about how to set up my deployment environments properly.

Normally I would set up local dev site, test, staging and live. using web.config transforms to alter connection strings and other app settings

I've recently been using AppHarbor for hosting and I think they are brillant.

There's a guid to setting up Orchard on AppHarbor here

Although I have to agree with comment here about all the post I've read expecting me to want to use and love Web Matrix!

Although most development in Orchard, will be done by creating modules. I think for at least one site they will want at least staging and live environments.

Whats the best way to set up and migrate from one environment to the next?

I've looked at the multi tenancy project, but that seem to address a different issue

I'd be interested to know what other have done. As well as any recommendations for modular Orchard development and in house source control - for those modules only.

Testudinal

So far I've created a new solution by copying the Orchard.Azure solution, Change the Shell settings to read connection string form the web config, changing Logging to use LogEntries Add-on, and changing File storage to use AmazonS3 - Settings driven also by the web config, will share when done. – Testudinal

How much of the site do you need to replicate between environments? Just modules? Content, data, content types? Are all custom content types coming from your custom module or did you build them in the Orchard admin? – Shipshape

The whole lot. for instance if I get an error on live I want to be able to recreate on Test and Dev. do some bug fixing on dev, deploy to test. then push up to live. This is my normal work flow. this bug could be on the orchard source or with a module. I've got something working. which I keep meaning to blog about.... – Testudinal

Heres the fork, hg.codeplex.com/forks/alistairedmunds/appharbor – Testudinal

Answer 1

I use the import-export module for exporting and importing content in my DTAP environments. Make sure to implement/override Importing and Exporting in your drivers (see: Custom part properties missing in export Orchard 1.6 /plug ;) )

Widgets however should be done manually AFAIK. They don't export and import well with that module.

As for modules and themes: just copy the folder. Same goes for media.

Betweentimes