Git Deployment Hosting & Staging Servers — Zero‑Downtime Releases (2025 Guide)

Manual FTP uploads cause downtime and errors. A simple Git workflow gives you predictable releases, instant rollbacks, and traceability. Here’s how to implement it for PHP apps (Laravel, Symfony, plain PHP) and static sites.

Table of Contents

1. Release flow overview
2. Create a staging environment
3. Atomic deploys with symlinks
4. Safe database migrations
5. CI/CD pipeline example
6. Instant rollbacks
7. Security & secrets handling
8. FAQs

1) Release flow overview

Stage	Action	Outcome
Commit	Push to main branch	CI builds artifacts
Staging	Auto‑deploy to staging site	QA & checks run
Production	Blue‑green switch / canary rollout	Zero‑downtime go‑live

2) Create a staging environment

• Use a subdomain (e.g., staging.example.com) with basic auth
• Mirror production config but with test API keys and sandbox payment gateways
• Seed anonymized data for realistic QA

3) Atomic deploys with symlinks

• Upload each build to a new releases/2025‑09‑30‑123456 folder
• Run composer/npm builds in the release directory
• Switch current → releases/… with one symlink update
• Keep shared/ for persistent storage and .env

4) Safe database migrations

• Put the app in maintenance mode for schema changes that lock tables
• Use backward‑compatible migration pairs (expand → code → contract)
• Back up before deploying; verify row counts and constraints

5) CI/CD pipeline example

# Pseudo‑pipeline
on: push
jobs:
  build:
    steps:
      - checkout
      - install PHP 8.3 + Composer
      - composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
      - npm ci && npm run build
      - archive artifacts
  deploy_staging:
    needs: build
    steps:
      - rsync artifacts to staging releases/
      - run migrations (safe)
      - switch symlink → current
      - run smoke tests
  deploy_production:
    needs: deploy_staging
    steps:
      - rsync artifacts to production releases/
      - warm caches; prime CDN
      - blue‑green flip; monitor

6) Instant rollbacks

• Keep the last 5–10 release folders
• Re‑point current symlink to the previous release
• Restore DB snapshot if a migration failed

7) Security & secrets handling

• Store secrets in environment variables (.env outside web root)
• Rotate keys regularly; restrict SSH access with keys only
• Enable read‑only file permissions for the current release

8) FAQs

Can I use this on shared plans?

Yes — use SSH with Git pulls or rsync deploys. Keep builds outside the web root and switch via symlink.

What about asset pipelines?

Compile on CI or staging. Upload only built assets to production to keep deploys small and fast.

How do I handle long DB migrations?

Break them into expand/contract steps and run during low‑traffic windows. Always have a snapshot for quick recovery.