WordPress 3.8.2, a security release, came out yesterday. Now, if you’re already on WordPress 3.8, your WordPress installation will most likely automatically update, but if you are using Git to manage WordPress as a submodule, and have auto-update disabled, you have to do that manually.
That said, it’s still super easy to do. It definitely outweighs not having a version control system.
Let’s look at the Git commands required to update WordPress from 3.8.1 to 3.8.2. Note that this will work for updating any version.
Current State
Here is the current state of affairs:
- I’m in the root of the website.
- WordPress is installed as a submodule in the
wordpressdirectory. - The WordPress origin comes from GitHub.
- I have the production server setup as a remote origin.
- I’m currently on the develop branch.
Update WordPress Submodule
First, we have to update our WordPress submodule from GitHub. We do this by:
- Fetching all new tags
- Checking out the WordPress version we want
[email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs[develop]$ cd wordpress [email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs/wordpress[(detached from 3.8.1)]$ git fetch --tags remote: Counting objects: 197, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (114/114), done. remote: Total 197 (delta 116), reused 128 (delta 77) Receiving objects: 100% (197/197), 326.11 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (116/116), done. From https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress * [new tag] 3.7.2 -> 3.7.2 * [new tag] 3.8.2 -> 3.8.2 [email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs/wordpress[(detached from 3.8.1)]$ git checkout 3.8.2 Previous HEAD position was 22bb602... Tag 3.8.1 HEAD is now at 5577e02... Tag 3.8.2 [email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs/wordpress[(detached from 3.8.2)]$ cd ..
As a side note, I wrote a blog post that shows how to add the Git branch name to your shell prompt.
Commit WordPress Update
Second, we need to commit our changes. We do this by:
- Staging our changes on the
developbranch - Committing those changes
- Switching over to the
masterbranch - Merging the
developbranch intomaster
Once that’s done, we’ll push both branches back up to origin.
[email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs[develop*]$ git add wordpress [email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs[develop*]$ git commit -m "Updated WordPress from 3.8.1 to 3.8.2" [develop 990ea06] Updated WordPress from 3.8.1 to 3.8.2 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) [email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs[develop]$ git checkout master M wordpress Switched to branch 'master' Your branch is up-to-date with 'prd01/master'. [email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs[master*]$ git merge develop Updating b90e460..990ea06 Fast-forward wordpress | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) [email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs[master]$ git push origin --all Counting objects: 3, done. Delta compression using up to 8 threads. Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done. Writing objects: 100% (2/2), 273 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done. Total 2 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0) To /Volumes/Repositories/domain.com.git b90e460..990ea06 develop -> develop b90e460..990ea06 master -> master
Deploy WordPress Update
Third, we’re going to deploy our WordPress update. We do this by:
- Pushing out the
masterbranch to the production server
Please note that you will need a post-receive hook in place that knows how to fetch and update submodules on the production server. You can see a complete example of such a hook in my other blog post.
[email protected]: ~/Sites/domain.com/www/htdocs[master]$ git push prd01 master [email protected]'s password: Counting objects: 3, done. Delta compression using up to 8 threads. Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done. Writing objects: 100% (2/2), 273 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done. Total 2 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0) remote: > Received master branch remote: > Determined environment is PRODUCTION remote: > Determined master branch is target branch remote: > Processing master branch remote: > Unset GIT_DIR remote: > Moved into /var/www/domains/domain.com/www/htdocs remote: > Determined htdocs contains files remote: > Determined working directory is on master branch remote: > Determined updates affect current branch remote: From /opt/repositories/domain.com remote: * branch master -> FETCH_HEAD remote: Updating b90e460..990ea06 remote: Fast-forward remote: wordpress | 2 +- remote: 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-) remote: > Pulled origin/master into master branch in htdocs remote: > Updated .updated file in htdocs remote: Entering 'wordpress' remote: From https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress remote: * [new tag] 3.7.2 -> 3.7.2 remote: * [new tag] 3.8.2 -> 3.8.2 remote: Entering 'wp-content/plugins/akismet' remote: Entering 'wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7' remote: Entering 'wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache' remote: > Fetched commits and tags for each submodule remote: From https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress remote: cbb694c..1dd3b92 3.7-branch -> origin/3.7-branch remote: 831b3ca..bf71d64 3.8-branch -> origin/3.8-branch remote: 3533e35..a3c725f master -> origin/master remote: Submodule path 'wordpress': checked out '5577e024a5d3d5fe17215a67e7791e1b3bccccd7' remote: > Initialized and updated all submodules remote: > Determined website runs WordPress remote: > Determined WordPress has W3 Total Cache installed To ssh://[email protected]/opt/repositories/domain.com.git b90e460..990ea06 master -> master
Conclusion
That’s it! Once you confirmed all these steps work for you, you can do all this in one swoop.
cd wordpress && git fetch --tags && git checkout 3.8.2 && cd .. && git add wordpress && git commit -m "Updated WordPress from 3.8.1 to 3.8.2" && git checkout master && git merge develop && git push origin --all && git push prd02 master
Let me know if you have any questions or problems with this!