Related material:

• This is one of the websites that I used as a reference, quite a bit is the same, even the borrowed graphic:
  http://dmiessler.com/blog/using-git-to-maintain-your-website
• Some basic information on Git usage
  http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git-core/docs/v1.2.6/tutorial.html

First how it works
The server has the htdocs of the live website as well as a htdocs.git as the central main repository. Everything will be pushed there, and once completed, automatically pulled into the live website. The structure is as so:

Install Git on all systems, I use Debian.

sudo apt-get install git-core

On the server enter your websites htdocs:

git init
git add .
git commit -a -m “Initial import of project.”

Now we want to clone this repository.

cd ..
git clone –bare htdocs htdocs.git

On the local system now:

git clone ssh://root@lwp.ca/full/path/to/htdocs.git

On the server:

mv htdocs htdocs.backup
git clone htdocs.git

Note: htdocs.backup can be removed once the system is setup and working.

Final updates to the server
Due to the clone process, file permissions and ownership are now all root. So use the htdocs.backup to figure out what the file ownership/permissions were. Make sure that your new htdocs and all its sub files are back to normal.

chown -R vu2000:vu2000 htdocs

Prevent the versioning of useless files
In the server repository edit htdocs/.gitignore, and make sure we do not back up cache directories and backup files *~ and config files. Do not add trailing slashes as this will prevent the exclude from working. Prep-ending slashes means the root of the git repo. By placing the .gitignore here, it will be part of the repository so anyone else working on the project will be using the same ignore rules.

*~
/wp-content/uploads
/cache
/users/uploads
/configuration.php

Now because we issued a “git add .” we should untrack files we don’t want to send back and forth.

git rm –cache configuration.php

Now when we do pushes and pulls we don’t have to keep updating our config file every time. We should make a backup however so we always have a copy.

cp configuration.php configuration.php.live

Protecting the source
Also, place a file in all .git folders called .htaccess containing:

Deny from all

This will prevent visitors with crafty google foo to download and view source code files.

Auto updating Live site
Now to enable auto updates when updates are pushed from offline dev machine to server.

On the server in our htdocs.git/hooks/post-update, make sure it contains only the following:

cd ../htdocs
env -i git pull

Then make it executable

chmod +x post-update

Done, now test
Now on the development machine make some changes and test.

touch “new file”
git add .
git commit -a -m “Testing first update”
git push

Yay! Everything should be working!

Notes on usage.

Updates on dev machine can be pushed to server like so:

git add .
git commit -a -m “This is an update”
git push

If changes were done on the server from some reason, navigate to the htdocs folder and run:

git add .
git commit -a -m “Changes made online”
git push

Then on your dev machine pull the updates.

git pull

If you need to check what has happened since the last update:

git status

Merge one branch into another:

git checkout master
git merge myBugFixes

Delete your old branch:

git branch -D myBugFixes

#!/bin/sh
# Database backup 2008 <jemmrich@gmail.com>
# Nightly Usage:
# 0 0 * * * /home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/scripts/backup.sh &> /dev/null

LOGFILE="/home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/databases/databases.log"
BACKUPDIR="/home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/databases"
STARTTIME="$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%r)"

# MySQL Login
SQLUSER="sqluser"
SQLPASS="sqlpass"

# Dump databases
echo "*** Database Backup Started: $STARTTIME" >> $LOGFILE

# Keep yesterdays databases
rm -f $BACKUPDIR/yesterday/*
mv $BACKUPDIR/*.gz $BACKUPDIR/yesterday/

for i in `echo "show databases" | mysql -u $SQLUSER -p$SQLPASS | grep -v Database`;
do
 mysqldump -u $SQLUSER -p$SQLPASS $i > /tmp/$i.sql
 echo $i >> $LOGFILE
 gzip /tmp/$i.sql

 # Send Databases
 cp /tmp/*.sql.gz $BACKUPDIR/

 # Remove our dumps to keep us clean
 rm -f /tmp/*.sql.gz
done

echo "*** Database Backup Ended: $(date +%Y-%m-%d-%r)" >> $LOGFILE
echo "\n" >> $LOGFILE

Setup

1. Change the user and password to a user that has ability to access all databases for dump
2. Download and set executable permissions chmod +x backup_databases.sh
3. edit cron to execute every night: crontab -e
4. add: 0 0 * * * /home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/scripts/backup_databases.sh &> /dev/null

Ideas for your setup

• The line following “Send databases” replace cp, with scp to send the databases to remote server. You will need to have passwordless ssh connections setup.
• Have the log file emailed to you once completed

My Future Improvements

• Enable backup archiving for the past week rotated daily so I can go back to a database from 2 or 3 days or even a week ago

Below is the official press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mark Perrin

(519)-384-1067

mark@mpisportmanagement.com

MotoPicks.com Launches FREE Supercross Fantasy League

Pick Your Team For the US Open of Supercross and Win Great Prizes

(September 29, 2009) MotoPicks.com has been launch with its first event, the US Open of Supercross! Fans can sign up and PLAY FOR FREE to win motocross prizes from AXO, Smith Optics, Thor, Answer Racing, and Monster Energy! Sign up and select your riders today! Oct 8th is the deadline for the US Open of Supercross.

MotoPicks has made it easy to pick your team and become your very own race team manager. All you will need to do is register an account so we know where to send your prize. Once that’s completed, simply select then series and event you would like (the US Open) and all that’s left is creating your teams name and hiring and firing your riders as you receive a 1,000,000 budget!

The top ten teams who scores the most points at each event will be sent prizes courtesy of our sponsors AXO, Smith Optics, Thor, Answer, MPI Sport Management, MotoHeaven.net and Monster Energy.

Join in the racing action and see how your fantasy team will place!

Good Luck to All Participates!

www.MotoPicks.com

About MotoPicks

MotoPicks is an online fantasy motorsports website. Fans can register and create profiles becoming their own Team Managers giving you have the power to hire and fire riders for each event. In 2009 MotoPicks will have the following series available for fans to participate in – 2009 US Open of Supercross, 2010 Monster Energy Supercross Series, 2010 Lucas Oil AMA Motocross Series and the 2010 Monster Energy Canadian Motocross Nationals.

Join MotoPicks Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MotoPicks/85714871747?ref=mf

Follow MotoPicks on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MotoPicks

I just completed a new clean install and figured I would write it all down in one place, great for me, and might be helpful for you.

I can be pretty picky when it comes to setting up my linux workstations so the process is a long one (a couple hours), but in the end I have what I need and isn’t that the point?

Most of the applications I use are for server management and web development, however the things the average user may want to read about is file sharing with NFS drives and dropbox, FireFox extensions and media codecs.

Here is a direct link to the new page: http://www.lwp.ca/james/?page_id=282

In this post you will learn how to take matters into your own hands and fix these websites so they are at least bearable. We will learn how to change the font and font size for a particular website.

Requirements:

• Firefox
• Firefox extension: Stylish
• Knowledge of CSS (cascading style sheets)

Getting started with Stylish

After the extension has been installed and Firefox has been restarted. Go to the bottom right hand corner and click on the Stylish icon. In the menu, click on the Manage Styles…

Because we do not have any scripts, there is nothing to display, so click on the Write… button and lets get started.

Write out the following code as show in the example below. Here, we are using example.com as well, our example. The trusty folks over there have provided us with a simple boring page. Substitute example.com with the URL that will apply to your case.

By pressing Save, you should have no error messages and be presented with a list of scripts installed. In our case, it looks like so.

Go back to the nightmarish website. You may have to refresh the page to see the results.

Example forum from hell, before:

Example forum from hell, after:

Don’t think you can have to stop here! CSS is very powerful and together with Stylish, you can virtually redesign any website the way YOU want it to look.

Check out the user submitted styles found here: http://userstyles.org/

ProTip!

• Look into the Adblock Plus extension. Not only is this great for removing advertisements from websites, but allows you to block or hide obnoxious images and other content from displaying. Perfect for websites with a huge picture at the top forcing you to scroll every page view.

• Read up on CSS, specifically the display: none; syntax for hiding elements within a page.