Deployment with Zend Server (Part 7 of 8)

This is the seventh in a series of eight posts detailing tips on deploying to Zend Server. The previous post in the series detailed setting up and clearing page caching.

Today, I'm sharing how to use the Zend Server SDK to deploy your Zend Server deployment packages (ZPKs) from the command line.

Tip 7: zs-client

Zend Server has an API, which allows you to interact with many admin tasks without needing access to the UI, and in an automated fashion. The API is extensive, and has a very complex argument signing process, which makes it difficult to consume. However, this is largely solved via zs-client, the Zend Server SDK.

The first thing you need to do after downloading it is to create an application target. This simplifies usage of the client for subsequent requests, allowing you to specify --target={target name} instead of having to provide the Zend Server URL, API username, and API token for each call.

This is done using the addTarget command:

$ zs-client.phar addTarget \
> --target={unique target name} \
> --zsurl={URL to your Zend Server instance} \
> --zskey={API username} \
> --zssecret={API token} \
> --http="sslverifypeer=0"

The zsurl is the scheme, host, and port only; don't include the path. You can find keys and tokens on the "Administration > Web API" page of your Zend Server UI, and can even generate new ones there.

Note the last line; Zend Server uses self-signed SSL certificates, which can raise issues with cURL in particular — which the SDK uses under the hood. Passing --http="sslverifypeer=0" fixes that situation.

Once you've created your target, you need to determine your application identifier. Use the applicationGetStatus command to find it:

$ zs-client.phar applicationGetStatus --target={unique target name}

Look through the list of deployed applications, and find the of the application.

From here, you can now deploy packages using the applicationUpdate command:

$ zs-client.phar applicationUpdate \
> --appId={id} \
> --appPackage={your ZPK} \
> --target={unique target name}

In sum: the Zend Server SDK gives us the tools to automate our deployment.

Next time…

The next tip in the series details automating deployments using zf-deploy and zs-client.