Automatic remote upload of zipped file in PHP

Question

I have a PHP e-commerce system installed for several clients. However, every time I update the system, I have to manually upload the new files to all clients.

I’d like to automate that. One solution that I thought was to go up in a single location a ZIP file with the updates, and put in the system of each store the "Update" function. Basically I would get the file zipped with the updates on my server, unzip on the client server, overwriting the old files.

The part where I want help is:

• No remote access for file copy (if necessary)
• Unzip the same in a way that overwrites the old files, without losing the attributes of the same (755 for folder and 644 for files)

Any suggestions?

Grateful from now on!

Answer 1

The solution is to have on the clients side a file whose code is called when the client clicks on a button "Update".

This code when called for execution will have to access the remote machine, download the file with the updates and uncompress it.

Accessing the remote host

To access the remote machine, we can use Curl that through the function below, we can use authentication or not depending on your case:

/**
 * cURL - Recolher ficheiro remoto
 *
 * Função recorrendo a cURL para recolher um ficheiro
 * numa máquina remota com ou sem autenticação.
 *
 * @param string $remotePath      Caminho remoto incluindo ficheiro
 * @param string $localPath       Caminho local incluindo ficheiro
 * @param array $access           Matriz com credenciais de acesso (usr;pwd)
 * @param boolean $overwrite      Se deve subscrever o ficheiro existente
 *
 * @return boolean                Estado da operação
 */
function recolherFicheiroRemotoCurl($remotePath, $localPath, $access = null, $overwrite = false) {

  // devolve TRUE se o ficheiro local existe e não é para subscrever
  if (is_file($remotePath) && !$overwrite) {

    return TRUE;
  }
  else {

    $curl_handle = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, $remotePath);
    curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 30);
    curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    if ($access) {
      curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $access["username"].":".$access["password"]);
    }
    curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    $buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
    curl_close($curl_handle);

    if ($buffer != false) {
      file_put_contents($localPath, $buffer);
      return TRUE;
    }
  }

  return TRUE;
}

PHP Curl ^(English)

Unzip with file subscription

To run the unzip subscribing to existing files, just pass the parameter -o:

exec ('unzip -o ' . $ficheiro);

Manpage to the UNZIP ^(English)

---

Solution

We can then have a PHP on each client’s side that runs at the client’s request to update the files:

<?php

// Onde fica
$localPath = "caminho/local/do/ficheiro.zip";

// Onde está
$remotePath = "caminho/remoto/do/ficheiro.zip";

// Ir buscar
if (recolherFicheiroRemotoCurl($remotePath, $localPath) {

  // Se ficheiro local existe
  if (is_file($localPath)) {

    // Correr unzip
    exec('unzip -o ' . $localPath, $output, $return_value);

   // podes aceder à variável $output para ver o output da execução
   // podes aceder à variável $return_value para ver o código devolvido
  }
}

?>

---

Notes:

In order for the above code to be used, it must be installed in each client:

• PHP Client URL Library (Curl)
• unzip