Posts tagged ‘deployment’

Expand-and-Contract: Safe Database Migrations for Zero-Downtime Laravel Deploys

A renamed column can 500 your Laravel app for 40 seconds even with zero-downtime deploys. Learn the expand-and-contract pattern: dual writes, chunked backfills, and contract releases, with real migration code for MySQL and Postgres.

Sameh Elhawary · Sep 15, 2026 · 22 min read

PHP 8.5 in Production: The Pipe Operator, and Upgrading PHP-FPM Without Downtime

PHP 8.5 shipped in November 2025 with the pipe operator, fatal error backtraces, and array_first(). Here's what's actually worth using in a Laravel codebase, plus a zero-downtime playbook for upgrading PHP-FPM from 8.4 to 8.5 on Ubuntu 24.04 with an instant rollback path.

Sameh Elhawary · Aug 09, 2026 · 20 min read

Your Deploy Pipeline Is an Attack Surface

In May 2026, 700+ compromised Laravel-Lang package versions shipped a credential stealer through Composer. Here's how to harden your Laravel deploy pipeline: --no-scripts, allow-plugins, lockfile discipline, scoped deploy keys, and a full incident checklist.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 16, 2026 · 17 min read

Upgrading to Laravel 13 in Production with Zero Downtime

A production playbook for upgrading to Laravel 13 without downtime: PHP pre-flight checks, Composer strategy, additive migrations, atomic symlink deploys, worker restarts, and a rollback plan that actually works.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 14, 2026 · 15 min read

Zero-Downtime Laravel Deployment: How It Actually Works

How zero-downtime deployment works for Laravel: atomic symlinks, shared storage, graceful PHP-FPM reloads, and instant rollback. No dropped requests during deploy — here's the full mechanism.

Sameh Elhawary · Mar 27, 2026 · 11 min read

Laravel Deployment in 2026: 12 Practices That Matter

The 2026 Laravel deployment playbook: 12 modern practices (and 5 outdated habits to drop). Covers zero-downtime deploys, Horizon, OPcache, queue workers, and production SSL. With real configs.

Sameh Elhawary · Mar 26, 2026 · 10 min read

The Complete Guide to Deploynix — Server Management Made Simple

Tired of wrestling with SSH, Nginx configs, and SSL certificates? Server management is a chore no developer enjoys, so we built Deploynix to fix it. Deploynix is a modern platform that removes the headache of deploying and managing web apps. Get everything you need in one simple, powerful dashboard so you can deploy with confidence.

Sameh Elhawary · Mar 03, 2026 · 10 min read