Had started my typical EE build (using a bootstrapped config) for a client when they announced they wanted another additional site using the MSM module (le sigh).
So added the MSM module, I commented out the $config['site_url'] and $config['cp_url'] and set those in index.php instead using $assign_to_config.
That's when I discovered this bug where MSM config file settings are not recognized, which is a pain but I can work around it. However, I noticed that when I created the secondary site, it wouldn't recognise my custom location for add-ons and so I had to add that to index.php as well to $assign_to_config['third_party_path'] = "../assets/third_party/";.
Then I discovered that when I create or modify a template file, it won't automatically sync and so I need to manually do that each time which is a real PITA.
Why would my templates not be syncing to the database? Is this related to the MSM config bug?
While I haven't tried bootstrapping the third party path yet, I've definitely been able to bootstrap the template path for MSM sites... What bootstrap method are you using?
Are your sites on subdomains or subfolders? I've only had experience with subfolders so perhaps that makes a difference (although it shouldn't).
Could you maybe walk through in a bit more detail what's happening? Your first site (site_id = 1) templates sync automatically from filesystem edits, but your second site does not? Yet if you go to CP > Design > Synchronize Templates, that works?
The $assign_to_config portion of MSM setup is definitely a weakspot when it comes to bootstrapping... I wonder if we need to work up an additional bootstrap for MSM+CP environment, where it looks at the cp cookie ($_COOKIE['exp_cp_last_site_id']), and sets values based on that.
It may be helpful if you let us know which bootstrap you are using. For example, if you look at this bootstrap the site_url and cp_url are set using the HTTP_HOST server variable, so this shouldn't clash with your MSM install (and multiple domains) at all.
Perhaps you could try using that boostrap file instead, and see if it fixes your issue with template syncing?
Finally, if you're going to use the EE template manager, you don't really need to store templates as files. Conversely, if you want to save templates as files, it's probably much easier editing them using Sublime Text or another editor, rather than the clunky built-in editor (which is really only useful for small/simple changes).
Related
Background
I work in QA at a software company.
We have about a half a dozen different web applications, each of which may require, at any given site, some customised settings added to its web.config file.
These can range from which Oracle database/schema(s) the app connects to, to how many search results to cache, to which hierarchy to use when sorting items on a web page.
We make use of Microsoft's Deploy package, to get the new releases installed/updated on client sites.
When we put out a new release, some of these customised settings may have been added to or removed from the given web app's web.config file, but using Deploy to import the new release over the top of the old one will clobber any customisations that may have been made.
Alternatives
There are ways of handling this manually, such as merging via a plain text comparison of the old and new web.config files, but these are cumbersome and prone to human error.
I was reading about transformations and thought they could be of some use.
There is also the capability to use external files (tip #8) which seems like a good way to go.
Improvement?
Should our programmers be providing some sort of semi-automated merge facility for this web.config file? Does the Deploy package provide this somehow?
Should we be making use of the external config files, as a best practice?
Is the concept of customising this web.config file at each site so fundamentally flawed that the whole thing needs to be re-thought?
Microsoft provides Web.config transformations as the de-facto way to do this. You can create different deployment configurations within Visual Studio and the web projects. Then when you build or your build server builds with that particular configuration the web.config is transformed to contain the settings you want to see.
View more about web.config transforms here.
I want to create a development environment running Movable Type 5.
To create a separate development environment, it is necessary to copy and paste to reflect production.
How would I go about building a good environment?
There are many ways to build a development environment, and an experienced Movable Type developer would need to know more about your goals in order to make a good recommendation.
All of the following guidance assumes that Movable Type has been installed and is ready to run
on the development server.
Here are a few basic tips:
Although some of the key configuration details for a Movable Type instance are kept in mt-config.cgi, there are website-level and blog-level settings that are of equal importance that are kept in the underlying database.
Since most Movable Type 5 instances use MySQL as the database backend, it's possible to dump the entire contents of the Movable Type database using the mysqldump utility or a more visual tool like the Export function of phpMyAdmin. This produces a large text file with MySQL CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements.
Once the database is dumped to a file, the file can be moved to another server, modified, and reconstituted. One of the tasks we commonly perform at that point is to go through the database using an editor, the UNIX sed command, or some similar process, and perform global searches and replacements for the URLs and file system paths that are embedded in the database dump.
This is necessary in many cases because your production website may be http://www.mysite.com/, but your development environment may be http://dev.mysite.com/ or even http://localhost/. Similarly, the file system paths in production may be /var/www/mysite/htdocs/... while development may be /opt/local/apache2/htdocs/mysite/....
Once changes of this nature are made and the modified file is saved, the database is reconstituted on the development server by using a UNIX shell command like:
cat mysite.sql | mysql -u mt_user -p mt_password
Or by importing the database into another copy of phpMyAdmin.
Once all of this is done, the mt-config.cgi file from production needs to be copied into the Movable Type working directory and rewritten so that several important elements are changed:
CGIPath
StaticWebPath
Database
DBUser
DBPassword
DBHost
These Movable Type Configuration Directives are discussed in the online documentation.
All of the non-database assets have to be copied from production to development. Things like files containing jpeg, png, and gif images, files that have been placed in the production file system either manually, or using the Asset Manager. There may be other files that need to be copied from production, depending on how you use Movable Type.
Once all of this is done, and you are able to login to the Movable Type development server successfully, you will probably want to the websites and blogs to ensure that all of the content has been copied into development.
I hope these instructions are somewhat helpful to people needing to setup a development environment. I would be happy to get comments or edits if anyone thinks I left out anything significant.
By saying that you need a development environment for Movable Type, what exactly do you need to develop?
If you are developing a plugin? or theme? a website? content?
It is possible to assign a different mt-config.cgi file to each virtual server, and working on different database, for the same installation.
If you are developing a plugin, you will want to use the PluginSwitch directive so the developed plugin won't be loaded on the real website.
http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/installation/managing-multiple-instances-of.html
Eslar, you may like to consider also this documentation resource:
http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/mt41/rsync.html
Alternatively, you may like to consider:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
If you go with the 'rsync' solution described in the movable type documentation, you may like to check also these configuration directives mentioned there:
http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/appendices/config-directives/rsyncoptions.html
http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/appendices/config-directives/synctarget.html
What are the best steps to take to prevent bugs and/or data loss in moving servers?
EDIT: Solved, but I should specify I mean in the typical shared hosting environment e.g. DreamHost or GoDaddy.
Bootstrap config is the smartest method (Newism has a free bootstrap config module). I think it works best on fresh installs myself, but ymmv.
If you've been given an existing EE system and need to move it, there are a few simple tools that can help:
REElocate: all the EE 2.x path and config options, in one place. Swap one URL for another in setup, check what's being set and push the button.
Greenery: Again, one module to rule them all. I've not used this but it's got a good rating.
So install, set permissions, move files and and DB, and then use either free module. If you find that not all the images or CSS instantly comes back online, check your template base paths (in template prefs) and permissions.
I'm also presuming you have access to the old DB. If not, and you can't add something simple like PHPMyAdmin to back it up, try:
Backup Pro(ish): A free backup module for files and db. Easy enough that you should introduce it to the site users (most never consider backups). All done through the EE CP. The zipped output can easily be moved to the new server.
The EE User Guide offers a reasonably extensive guide to Moving ExpressionEngine to Another Server and if you follow all of these steps then you will have everything you need to try again if any bugs or data loss occur.
Verify Server Compatibility
Synchronize Templates
Back-up Database and Files
Prepare the New Database
Copy Files and Folders
Verify File Permissions
Update database.php
Verify index.php and admin.php
Log In and Update Paths
Clear Caches
As suggested by Bitmanic, a dynamic config.php file helps with moving environments tremendously. Check out Leevi Graham's Config Bootstrap for a quick and simple solution. This is helpful for dev/staging/prod environments too!
I'd say the answer is the same as any other system -- export your entire database, and download all of your files (both system and anything uploaded by users - images, etc). Then, mirror this process by importing/uploading to the new server.
Before I run my export, I like to use the Deeploy Helper module to change all of my file paths in EE to the new server's settings.
Preventing data loss primarily revolves around the database and upload directories.
Does your website allow users to interact with the database? If so at some point you'll need to turn off EE to prevent DB changes. If not that you don't have too much to worry about as you can track and changes on the database end between the old and new servers.
Both Philip and Derek offer good advice for migrating EE. I've also found that having a bootstrap config file helps tremendously - especially since you can configure your file upload directories directly via config values now (as of EE2.4, I think).
For related information, please check out the answers to this similar Stack Overflow question.
There are lots of similar questions to this, but they all seem to involve either configuring permissions or installing a plugin.
I'm looking for a solution that is "dumb" - i.e. to allow the code to be deployed from source control and automatically have access to certain paths blocked, without anyone needing to configure the server.
I only need directory & file blocking, none of the other abilities that .htaccess has.
Just to be clear, we are using ColdFusion, not .NET, and whilst CF has assorted ways to handle its own scripts, it doesn't do anything with non-CFML scripts. (It is possible to do, for example config.xml.cfm, but that is a messy solution that requires updating code, etc.)
(Of course, ideally these directories/files shouldn't even be in the webroot, and if I could switch to Apache or IIS7 I could simply use .htaccess, but those aren't options at the moment.)
My current solution is going to be a readme.deploy.txt that contains instructions on how to manually set the permissions on the relevant files & directories in IIS Manager, but obviously I'd much prefer to avoid human intervention for it - any suggestions?
You could create a script that would do this when you cycle through your deployment, like say a scheduled task where you use a PowerShell script or batch script that sets up the enviroment.
With IIS6 this is going to require mucking with the Metabase, which could solve your problem, but it will require scripts to have access to the system metabase and execute system commands or you going to have to learn how to use the ii6 metabase command files
see this This Article
If they have root access maybe it would be wise to just create a installation utility that can tweak the settings for them.
Good luck,
mike
Well, for ASP.net specifically you have the .config files which allow you to control some aspect of those web folders.
However, I'm not aware of anything like .htaccess for IIS.
.NET has Routing which allows you to 'rewrite' paths. The MVC framework has it built in... I'm not sure on how to configure/use it for 'normal' ASP.NET applications.
Update: didn't know you weren't on .NET.
Maybe you're just looking for File/Folder permission settings? Don't know anything about setting those by using a config file...
What files can we modify so that our solution is still supported by Microsoft?
Is it allowed to customize error pages?
Can we modify the web.config files to use custom HTTPHandlers?
You can certainly edit the web.config file for your sites. The one thing that you should be aware of, however, is that when you start editing files manually on the file system, you will have to remember to manually make those changes across all servers in the farm (assuming a farm exists). In addition to this, when you edit files in the 12 hive, it's important to understand that you will be making a change to all SharePoint sites hosted on the server(s) for which the files were edited.
Personally, if I were going to create a custom error page, I would simply add a <customErrors> section to my web.config. I avoid editing any existing files in the 12 hive, but I have added files (though it's rare).
The customization of the error page is not very easy (or flexible). You can see an example here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jingmeili/archive/2007/04/08/how-to-create-your-own-custom-404-error-page-and-handle-redirect-in-sharepoint-2007-moss.aspx
The web.config can be changed. I used my own HttpModules in addition to the original ones, but I haven't used custom HttpHandlers. IMO it should work if you don't change the original handler (i.e. if you add your handler for a specific type of file not handled by SP).
do not modify any pre-installed files in the 12 hive (Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12)... a service pack may update and overwrite any changes.
Anything in the Content Database (Masterpage, Stylesheets list in ~Catalogs) is available to modify (I would add, instead of update, in case a service pack changes anything) as it sits atop the file system, and is instantly available to any members of the web farm (newly added servers).
Any custom features, added to the 12 hive in the features folder, in a custom/non-microsoft folder (that is, inside the 12\feature folder, do not modify any preinstalled files, but feel free to add a folder for your feature and work within).
Custom features can be developed using the Visual Studio Extensions (VSeWSS), currently available for Visual Studio 2005/2008... benefit being that the output is a feature package (.WSP file) which is designed to be portable across SharePoint. Additionally, the .WSP files are just CAB files with a different extension, offering the ability to be explored by simply renaming them.
For site definitions, Microsoft has a good article about what is supported and unsupported. In short, the only change you can make to the out-of-the-box site definitions is changing the entry in the webtemp.xml file to hidden in order to prevent the site definition from appearing in the site template list. This is something many may be interested in doing.
You may also, of course, copy existing definitions and rename them in order to create new ones.
The complete list of supported and unsupported scenarios for working with custom site definitions can be found here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;898631
Here is the closest I can find to a official response from Microsoft:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263010.aspx