Patch deployment process

Owned by Zarren Spry (Deactivated)
Last updated: 11-Mar-21 by Jonathan Dodds (Deactivated)

Sometimes it's necessary to deploy front-end code directly into the running application.

Create the ticket

First thing is to create a ticket for the required task. This should include as much details as possible like any files that need to be synced with the CDN, file structure etc. Here's a set of rules to help with that process.

  • Provide a deadline for the deployment task.
  • Include clear guidance on what files need to change and where they reside within the application file structure.
  • Be as explicit as possible to avoid confusion.

Packaging the hot-fix

To make the deployment as low risk as possible, files should be provided to the Ops team packed within a ZIP archive following the correct layout as they need to reside within the running applications filesystem. For example If we need to update the file /vwshop/src/main/webapp/skin/js/zinc/pages/checkout.js within the mantiki project we would package the file like the example below.


As you can see, I've packed up the checkout.js file a ZIP archive. The archive contains two folders; one for the main virginwines.co.uk site and the other for mailwineclub.co.uk.


ZIP the webapps folder only.

E.G. For MAC

1) Open Terminal

2) cd to ${PROJECT_HOME}/vwshop/src/main

2) From command line run

zip -r hotfix.zip webapp -x ".*" -x "__*"



Deploying the hot-fix

Once everything has been provided to the appropriate people and the release has been approved, the Ops team should

  • Deploy the archive file to /vwnfs/mantiki/hot_fix/${CURRENT_DEPLOYED_VERSION}/ (e.g., /vwnfs/mantiki/hot_fix/8.3.4/hotfix.zip)
  • Unpack the archive to a containing directory (e.g., /vwnfs/mantiki/hot_fix/8.3.4/unpacked)

  • Generate an invalidation CSS statement.  Here's a one liner to run on the command line

    $> find unpacked/ -type f | tr "\n" "," | sed 's/,/*,/g' | sed 's|^./||' > invalidation.csv
  • Deploy files to all existing application servers.
  • Run invalidation on Cloudfront using the generated CSV.