cf-blue-green-deploy is a plugin for the CF command line tool that automates a few steps involved in zero-downtime deploys.

The plugin takes care of the following steps packaged into one command:

• Pushes the current version of the app with a new name
• Optionally runs smoke tests against the newly pushed app to verify the deployment
  • If smoke tests fail, newly pushed app gets marked as failed and left around for investigation
  • If smoke tests pass, remaps routes from the currently live app to the newly deployed app
• Cleans up versions of the app no longer in use

• Get the plugin from the CF Community Repository

cf add-plugin-repo CF-Community https://plugins.cloudfoundry.org
cf install-plugin blue-green-deploy -r CF-Community

In scripts, add the -f flag to install-plugin for non-interactive mode.

• Deploy your app

cd your_app_root
cf blue-green-deploy app_name

• Deploy with optional smoke tests

cf blue-green-deploy app_name --smoke-test <path to test script>

• Deploy with specific manifest file

cf blue-green-deploy app_name -f <path to manifest>

• Deploy with a hard clean-up of the 'blue' (original) app

cf blue-green-deploy app_name --delete-old-apps

• You can also use the shorter alias

cf bgd app_name

The only argument passed to the smoke test script is the FQDN of the newly pushed app. If the smoke test returns with a non-zero exit code the deploy process will stop and fail, the current live app will not be affected.

If the test script exits with a zero exit code, the plugin will remap all routes from the current live app to the new app. The plugin supports routes under custom domains.

Before cloning the source, you may wish to set up GOPATH and a go-friendly folder hierarchy to avoid path issues. Run the following in your preferred working directory:

mkdir ./go
export GOPATH=`pwd`/go
mkdir -p go/src/github.com/bluemixgaragelondon/
cd go/src/github.com/bluemixgaragelondon/
git clone https://github.com/bluemixgaragelondon/cf-blue-green-deploy
cd cf-blue-green-deploy

Then run a build:

script/build

This will download dependencies, run the tests, and build binaries in the artefacts folder.

script/test

This will run the unit tests. To run the acceptance tests (which need a Cloud Foundry instance), use

script/test_acceptance

You almost certainly want to install the plugin before running the acceptance tests (to make sure the latest version of the plugin is being tested). On OS X, the command would be

script/build ; script/install ; script/test_acceptance

See instructions for releasing a project for instructions on how to setup the acceptance tests.