Sitespinner

Sitespinner provides two drush commands: sitespinner (ss), and sitespinner-delete (ssd).

1. sitespinner creates a new Drupal multisite based on an existing live template site. It uses drush site alias files to describe the source (template) and destination (new) sites. Sitespinner copies the template site's database and files directory to the new destination site, and then writes any variables specified in the destination alias to the destination site, overriding the original values. This allows you to maintain one live, canonical template site (we call ours: templatesite) from which all new sites will be based.

2. sitespinner-delete simply deletes a multisite based on the specific site alias you provide. It will permanently delete the site's files (sites/{site root} directory), symlink, and corresponding MySQL database and tables.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• drush-All-Versions-2.0.tar.gz or any later version should work
• a working Drupal site that either already is functioning as a multisite, or that you want to function as a multisite
• PHP, Apache2, MySQL or PostgreSQL
• sudo (and root privileges) (on other Debian you may need to do: su root)
• Create two database server accounts and name them as you wish; you will reference them in your alias file config settings
  • example #1: db_creator (needs privileges to create and drop databases)
    • CREATE USER 'db_creator'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'super_clever_password';
    • UPDATE mysql.user SET Select_priv='Y', Insert_priv='Y', Update_priv='Y', Delete_priv='Y', Create_priv='Y', Drop_priv='Y', Reload_priv='N', References_priv='Y', Index_priv='Y', Alter_priv='Y', Show_db_priv='Y', Trigger_priv='Y' WHERE Host='%' andUser='db_creator';
    • flush privileges;
  • example #2: drupal_user (needs privileges as a web user to interact with Islandora; exclude create or drop privileges)
    • CREATE USER 'drupal_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'very_clever_password';

Install Sitespinner

• Locate your server's drush executable file
  • which drush
• Install sitespinner to the drush/commands folder
  • example: cd /opt/drush-6.x/vendor/drush/drush/commands
  • git clone https://github.com/Islandora-Collaboration-Group/drush-sitespinner.git sitespinner
• Copy the provided sample alias file to ~/.drush/ (note: alias files are typically installed here, and the full path will resolve approximately to: /home/islandora/.drush/)
  • cp sitespinner/examples/sitespinner-sample.aliases.drushrc.php ~/.drush/sitespinner-sample.aliases.drushrc.php

Create a new Drupal multi-site

• Locate your alias files
  • cd ~/.drush/
• Copy an alias file and rename it for new site (example: economics)
  • cp sitespinner-sample.aliases.drushrc.php sitespinner-economics.aliases.drushrc.php
• Open the new file and edit the "Configuration Settings" section to specify "source" and "destination" aliases; save changes; close file.
  • emacs sitespinner-economics.aliases.drushrc.php
• List all site aliases
  • drush sa
• Create new site using "source" and "destination" aliases as arguments (use output from above drush sa)
  • drush sitespinner @sitespinner-economics.template @sitespinner-economics.economics
• The command above will create a new multi-site at: https://subdomain.example.edu/economics
• FINAL STEP: see below to "Update the Drupal Filter"

Delete one specific preexisting Drupal multi-site

• You must specify your "destination" alias
  • drush sitespinner-delete @sitespinner-economics.economics
• The drush command above will permanently delete the site's files (/var/www/html/sites/economics/), symlink, and corresponding MySQL database and tables
• FINAL STEP: see below to "Update the Drupal Filter"

Update the Drupal Filter

• Edit the "filter-drupal.xml" file on the Fedora server to add or remove this site (see duraspace documentation)
  • cd /usr/local/fedora/server/config/
  • sudo su
  • emacs filter-drupal.xml
• Restart tomcat:
  • service tomcat restart
  • exit
• Done.

Options

You can use the following flags:

• --simulate See what the commands will do to your system. When using simulate there will be no changes to your system.
• -f Force the script to continue when errors are encountered. E.g.: You have tried to install a site but your failed halfway due to permissions. You can then change the permissions on your server, and force the script to execute.
• -s Silence the script will produce less output, and only prompt you when questions are raised.
• -d Show verbose debugging output

Useful drush commands

• drush sa [list all site aliases] [shortcut: "sa" = "site-alias"]
• drush sa @sitespinner-sample [shows execution view of a specific alias file, without any actual execution]
• drush help sa [documentation for site alias]
• drush help [documentation for drush]
• drush help sitespinner [documentation for sitespinner create]
• drush help sitespinner-delete [documentation for sitespinner delete]
• drush cc drush [clear drush cache] [shortcut: "cc" = "cache-clear"]
• drush topic docs-aliases [documentation on writing and installing drush site aliases]
• more drush help

More information about alias files

Template alias

To be used as a source alias with sitespinner, the source alias file, at a minimum, needs to provide values for these:

['root'] (The Drupal root)
['uri']
['db_url'] or ['databases']
['path-aliases']['%files']

Destination alias

To be used as a destination site alias, the file needs to provide, at a minimum, values for these:

['root'] (This is the drupal root, not the path to the actual multisite's directory under /sites/.)
['uri']
['databases']['default']['default'] (IMPORTANT: ['db_url'] will not work!!!!)
['path-aliases']['%files']

Other sitespinner specific values that you should normally provide:

Since you will be creating a database, you will probably need to provide a mysql username and password for a more privileged user than your standard drupal database user. If not provided, then this command will attempt to create the database using the default drupal database connection info.

['sitespinner-destination']['db_creator'] = array(
  'username' => "...",
  'password' => "...",
);

A path to a file to use as a settings.php template. It must contain a line with the text "$databases = array();". If not provided, the /sites/default/default.settings.php file will be used.

['sitespinner-destination']['settings_file_template']

Users, groups, and permissions for the files and directories that will be created.

['sitespinner-destination']['server-environment'] = array(
    'default_user' => "...",
    'default_group' => "...",
    'settings_file_permissions' => '640',
    'files_directory_permissions' => '770',
);

Read more notes in the sample aliases file.

['sitespinner-destination']['create-domain'] = array(
    'type' => 'path',
    'name' => '...',
);

Variable overrides. Any key => value pairs that you put into the variables array will be written to the variables table in the destination site's database. In this way you can specify the site name, theme settings, and many other configuration options. Any array values will be recursively merged with values provided in inherited (parent) alias files.

['sitespinner-destination']['variables'] = array(
    'key' => 'value',
    'another key' => array(
        'cool' => 'I can write arrays to the variables table!'
    ),
);

Parent alias

A little known feature of drush site aliases is that you can specify a comma-separated list of site aliases whose properties will be inherited by this alias. To do so, add a 'parent' key to the alias array:

'parent' => '@etc, @grandparent, @parent',

This can be handy when managing multiple configurations of sites in your multisite setup. You can define the characteristics that are common to a given configuration in the parent alias, and then in the child site, just provide those details that are needed for that site.

Contributing

Contact the authors if you want to submit pull requests to us.

Authors

• Andy Cavenaugh - Initial version of Sitespinner as bash scripts
• Pat Dunlavey - Refactored Sitespinner as a drush command
• David Keiser-Clark - Refactored Sitespinner readme and example; bug fixes - dwk2

License

This project is licensed under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE - see the LICENSE.txt file for details