Deploying PHP Applications to Azure App Service with Azure DevOps

This post is about deploying PHP applications to Azure App Service with Azure DevOps. Recently I had to deploy PHP application to Azure App Service. You can deploy it to Azure App Service using FTP, since there is no compilation steps required. If you’re using Composer - Dependency Manager for PHP, you need to run the composer install before deploying the files to app service via FTP. Instead of using deploying FTP deploy the app, I choose to implement a deployment pipeline, so that I don’t want to share the FTP credentials to the developer. And if I enable continuous integration - when ever developer commit some changes, can be deployed automatically to the app service.

In the Azure DevOps I used a classic editor option to create the pipeline. Firstly I created a pipeline with empty job since there is no predefined task available for PHP deployment. In the tasks I added first Bash script task - for running the command - composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist. Next I added Archive files task. In this task make sure, un select the Prepend root folder name to archive paths option.

Archive files Task

Next I am adding Publish Artifact task, so that I can publish the Zip file from the directory to the artifacts location. And finally I am adding Azure App Service deployment task. In the task you need to select the Package or folder as the $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/**/*.zip file - which the output of the Publish Artifact Task.

App Service Deployment Task

And you need to choose the Runtime Stack - 7.4 - the PHP runtime you would like to use. And here is the complete build pipeline.

Php App Service Deployment pipeline

And here is the YAML - Exported from Azure DevOps.

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
    - main
resources:
  repositories:
  - repository: self
    type: git
    ref: main
jobs:
- job: Job_1
  displayName: Agent job 1
  pool:
    vmImage: ubuntu-20.04
  steps:
  - checkout: self
    clean: true
  - task: Bash@3
    displayName: Composer Install
    inputs:
      targetType: inline
      script: composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist
  - task: ArchiveFiles@2
    displayName: Archive $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)
    inputs:
      rootFolderOrFile: $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)
      includeRootFolder: false
  - task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
    displayName: 'Publish Artifact: drop'
  - task: AzureRmWebAppDeployment@4
    displayName: 'Azure App Service Deploy: Php Web App'
    inputs:
      ConnectedServiceName: 643990e2-059d-4e5a-87e0-e9484682897e
      WebAppKind: webAppLinux
      WebAppName: azure-php-web-app
      Package: $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/**/*.zip
      RuntimeStack: PHP|7.4

Here few helpful links which talks about deploying PHP apps to Azure App Service.

  1. Build and test PHP apps
  2. Build and deploy to a PHP web app

Happy Programming :)