In my previous post Application Frameworks now part of the Windows Azure Web Sites Gallery I introduced the concept of ready to install application frameworks which can be provisioned as part of a new Windows Azure Web Site. The benefits include having a ready to go starting point for building out your application with a tested and fully capable package which includes common Application Settings as well as the proper configuration for IIS.

Today, I’m happy to announce a new addition to the App Frameworks section of the Windows Azure App Gallery, CakePHP. Let’s take a look at the steps to get CakePHP running in Windows Azure Web Sites using the new Gallery item.

Setup CakePHP on Windows Azure Web Sites

To follow along with the example below, sign up for a Windows Azure Free Trial.

In order to provision a Web Site from the Windows Azure App Gallery we must first sign into the Windows Azure Management Portal. Once you’ve logged into the portal you will see the command bar at the bottom of the browse, click New.

This will open the drawer and enable you to select from a variety of different services which you can provision, for this example we’re interested in Web Sites. Select Compute >  Web Sites > Gallery.

The gallery modal will pop up and allow you to select from a number of well-known open source CMS, Frameworks and other tools.  Select App Frameworks > CakePHP or scroll through the list to find CakePHP.

At the time of writing this article the CakePHP version in the Gallery was 2.3.6.

Once CakePHP is selected, click the next arrow at the bottom of the screen to advance to the Configuration page in the wizard.

In order to configure a secure deployment of CakePHP, the Cake Foundation suggests including a Security Salt and Cipher Seed. The Web Sites team has conveniently surfaced those settings to the Configuration page, which will get injected into the proper configuration setting in the app/Config/core.php file.

During the configuration, you can select an existing MySQL Database or create a new MySQL Database with your new site. If you needed to create a new MySQL Database, you will receive this screen which will ask for the database name, a region to deploy the database in [Note: It’s a good practice to deploy your database in the same region as your application to reduce latency], you will also need to accept the terms from our partner ClearDB who supplies the MySQL Databases in Windows Azure.

That’s it! After clicking the checkmark to complete the wizard your new Web Site will start to provision which includes a configured version of CakePHP which is a great starter point to your next CakePHP Application.

Once the Status changes to Running, you’re ready to view your new site. You can do this as simply as clicking the BROWSE icon in the Command Bar.

Congratulations, you have yourself a brand new CakePHP Installation in Windows Azure Web Sites.

CakePHP is setup, Now what do I do?

Now that the CakePHP Framework is in place it’s time to start building an application. To do so, you’re going to need the source on your local machine.

Download your Web Site files with Git

With Windows Azure Web Sites you can deploy using many source control repositories, this includes Git. However, Git isn’t enabled by default when you create a site from the gallery, so lets find out how to enable Git Deployment (and in our case, a remote repository to clone from).

If you click into the details of your new Web Site in the Windows Azure Portal, you will see a Quick Glance section on the DASHBOARD. Click on Set up deployment from source control to create a new repository in your Windows Azure Web Site.

Like I said above, there are many options for source control systems, select Local Git Repository then the next arrow to continue.

It may take a few seconds for your repository to be created, so this notification will keep you amused in the meantime.

Once the repository is created, the portal should redirect to the DEPLOYMENTS tab. Copy the Git URL, you’ll need this to clone your repository on your local machine.

On your local machine, open Git Bash or your favourite Git command line utility, type the following pasting the git url you copied above in place of <git-url> below, then hit enter.

git clone <git-url>

You now have a local git repository of your CakePHP Application.

You may have noticed both the Vendor and Plugins directories are missing, this is because they are empty and Git does not track empty folders. Simply create the folder locally and place a file in the directories in order to upload third party code or plugins, respectively.

Download your Web Site files with FTP

To download your Web Site files with FTP you will need your favourite FTP tool, this could be a number of different tools including the command line. Here are the steps you will need to take to configure FTP downloads from your site, I’ll leave the actual downloading up to you.

On the DASHBOARD screen in the portal under the Quick Glance section, you will need to set (or reset, incase you forgot) your deployment credentials. Click on the link which allows you to set the deployment credentials.

Fill out the form providing your username, password and confirm password.

Once you’ve set your credentials, scroll a down the Quick Glance section until you find your FTP or FTPS Host Name.

Notice that your FTP User is a combination of the web site name and the user name provided above, the password is the password which was created when you set your deployment credentials.

Enjoy developing with CakePHP!