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WHMCS Autoupdater utility
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WHMCS Autoupdater utility

BharatBBharatB Member, Patron Provider

Hello Folks,


I got this idea since whmcs is lazy enough to implement it anyway heres what I have in mind.


1. A central GUI where multiple servers / vps that possess whmcs can be linked, their mysql id pass, IP and whmcs paths are specified while adding the server.

2. As soon as added a cronjob on the central GUI fetches version information from each server and updates the central's database with respective version details

3. You can specify the latest version on your GUI and place a file link of the respected version either stored locally or somewhere else.

4. You can turn on auto update feature or manually click update button and rest of the job is taken care of by the GUI. ( I have to try implement background process using screen or something to try to make this unattended post initiation of update process)

5. If everything goes smoothly you'll receive an email on your admin account mail when done or error logs are given out.

Cons:

This will only download the zip, unzip it and merge.

Doesnt update database releases if any ( well not yet )

You have to manually specify version and upload file or file link of the new whmcs release.

Pros:

You dont need to login every server and update it yourself ( incase of multiple whmcs installations )

I dont know any other pros.

If many would prefer this to be released then I'll make it open source on github or this will be only private.

Comments

  • To be honest, auto updating does have its' pros and cons.

    You'd be always ready for bugs, etc, but on the other hand, being able to just read the fixes then manually installing the update will probably do you better because you know what you're updating.

  • ScionScion Member

    One difficulty of this I think would be for files and themes you have customized. Occasionally changes to those are included in the updates and need to be merged. That's why I put my entire WHMCS installation in git. I can closely track the changes made in updates and easily roll back if something breaks.

    The other difficulty is security and trust. I for one would not trust a centralized 3rd party service (unless I misunderstand bullet point #1?) to get anywhere near my WHMCS installation. I'd much rather have some kind of open source script that I can read and be sure isn't going to steal my customer data or break my billing system before I install it.

    Aside from those things, I definitely agree that patching WHMCS is a hassle and way more work than it needs to be. Some kind of tool to automate it would be awesome to have.

  • BharatBBharatB Member, Patron Provider

    @FlamesRunner said:
    To be honest, auto updating does have its' pros and cons.

    You'd be always ready for bugs, etc, but on the other hand, being able to just read the fixes then manually installing the update will probably do you better because you know what you're updating.

    Thats what I mentioned unless user uploads the latest whmcs patch or add its link manually and set auto update = 1 this doesnt run :)

  • BharatBBharatB Member, Patron Provider
    edited July 2015

    @Scion said:
    One difficulty of this I think would be for files and themes you have customized. Occasionally changes to those are included in the updates and need to be merged. That's why I put my entire WHMCS installation in git. I can closely track the changes made in updates and easily roll back if something breaks.

    The other difficulty is security and trust. I for one would not trust a centralized 3rd party service (unless I misunderstand bullet point #1?) to get anywhere near my WHMCS installation. I'd much rather have some kind of open source script that I can read and be sure isn't going to steal my customer data or break my billing system before I install it.

    Aside from those things, I definitely agree that patching WHMCS is a hassle and way more work than it needs to be. Some kind of tool to automate it would be awesome to have.

    Um you misread it, the central GUI will be at your disposal and no one else except you will have access to it.

    Like is said all the script will be opensource and will be very minute

  • ScionScion Member

    BharatB said: Um you misread it, the central GUI will be at your disposal and no one else except you will have access to it.

    Ah, I took "central" to mean it was a service you were going to run and that I'd log into via a website and provide credentials to. Sounds like you meant that it's software I install myself on my hardware. That makes much more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

    Thanked by 1BharatB
  • I think they've mentioned somewhere that they'll enable the self update facility with version six. Seems like they're still developing. I think this won't be a big deal for them as they've rewritten the core (as they're saying)

  • KuJoeKuJoe Member, Host Rep

    Auto updates sound like a really bad idea. I still get sad when I read about all of the people who manually update their WHMCS installs without testing them first and run into obvious bugs they would have caught if they spent an extra 10 minutes to upgrade properly. I personally wouldn't even let me development WHMCS installs auto update.

  • BharatBBharatB Member, Patron Provider

    @KuJoe said:
    Auto updates sound like a really bad idea. I still get sad when I read about all of the people who manually update their WHMCS installs without testing them first and run into obvious bugs they would have caught if they spent an extra 10 minutes to upgrade properly. I personally wouldn't even let me development WHMCS installs auto update.

    Um i dont know if you read clearly , I stated that you yourself should first upload the patch to the central server ( implying at your own risk , or could say you tested and then uploaded )

  • HBAndreiHBAndrei Member, Top Host, Host Rep

    cPanel auto-updates just fine and it's much more complex of a software than WHMCS is... I'm all for the auto-update feature as long as it's done properly, aka just core zero day vulnerability fixes, that shouldn't affect or cause any front-end issues.

  • KuJoeKuJoe Member, Host Rep

    @HBAndrei said:
    cPanel auto-updates just fine and it's much more complex of a software than WHMCS is... I'm all for the auto-update feature as long as it's done properly, aka just core zero day vulnerability fixes, that shouldn't affect or cause any front-end issues.

    I like cPanel's auto-updates but WHMCS is a completely different animal since most WHMCS installs are completely unique since companies use different modules, payment gateways, addons, configurations, templates/themes, etc...

    I've personally had very few issues (if any) when upgrading any WHMCS I've ever had but I would never risk any automated update for a script so critical to my business. Maybe my lack of issues is the cause or result of my paranoia. :)

    @BharatB said:
    Um i dont know if you read clearly , I stated that you yourself should first upload the patch to the central server ( implying at your own risk , or could say you tested and then uploaded )

    So you basically want to automate the file upload? Why need a GUI for that? You can automate that with a quick shell script without any effort and it would be a lot more secure (no logins or passwords, no DB access, etc...).

  • BharatBBharatB Member, Patron Provider
    edited July 2015

    @KuJoe said:
    So you basically want to automate the file upload? Why need a GUI for that? You can automate that with a quick shell script without any effort and it would be a lot more secure (no logins or passwords, no DB access, etc...).

    Owner uploads file to central -> which may / maynot have many whmcs servers linked to it -> each server has an option to auto update ( which will fetch file which user uploaded ) -> if onwer wants manual he can select the whmcs server and click update and then rest is taken careof.

    P.S I'll just demonstrate the application after its done than explaining it :P

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    IF an automated installer is needed I would prefer that a local shell fetched the file and executed the update.
    Grabbing settings for WHMCS from the local installation instead of having them all stored in one central location.

    One issue I see is when files should be updated in the admin part of WHMCS since everyone should have changed the name of the admin directory.
    That is one less thing to store if read from the local settings.

    Thanked by 1BharatB
  • BharatBBharatB Member, Patron Provider

    @mikho said:

    Well I had that in mind and came up with an earlier script which is pretty small sort of blue print

  • For 0day exploits auto update is a good idea otherwise it could break anything. Before updating make a backups in case something will go wrong

  • BharatBBharatB Member, Patron Provider

    @alexvolk said:
    For 0day exploits auto update is a good idea otherwise it could break anything. Before updating make a backups in case something will go wrong.

    Nice suggestion, I'll take that into consideration while developing the app.

  • HBAndreiHBAndrei Member, Top Host, Host Rep

    OP: most people are skeptical of using WHMCS's own auto-update utility (if there were one), I really doubt any serious business would use a third party utility that could basically ruin their business. I for one would use WHMCS's utility if it'd be developed by them inhouse and done as described in my last post, but a third party utility is absolutely out of the question.

    Just thought I'd point it out before you get working.

    Thanked by 1BharatB
  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    It might have been viable if it was done 2 years ago, but now they are bringing their own in to v6 I doubt this is worth your time.

    Thanked by 1BharatB
  • @AnthonySmith said:
    It might have been viable if it was done 2 years ago, but now they are bringing their own in to v6 I doubt this is worth your time.

    Really? They're actually developing this now?

  • For what it's worth, you can do a semi-auto update using softaculous. It will upgrade the version with the click of a button. I don't know about ones without some manual intervention (as we wouldn't want to run completely automated upgrades due to risk of breaking something)

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