Managing a Network of Drupal Sites with Aegir

Presented at DrupalCamp Scotland 2015

Transcript

1. Managing a Network of
   Drupal Sites with Aegir
   

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2. Andrew Millar
   Head of Web Services
   University of Dundee
   Email: a.j.millar@dundee.ac.uk
   Twitter: @millaraj
   

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3. History of Drupal at Dundee
   2008 – New
   Job
   2009 – New
   CMS
   2010 – New
   Direction
   

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4. University
   CLS
   School of Research
   Divisions / Centres
   / Units (x13)
   Labs (~85)
   School of Teaching Support Services
   Specialised
   Scientific Services
   (~ 16)
   Administrative &
   Technical Support
   Affiliated Sites
   (e.g. Postdoc,
   PiCLS, Impact, etc)
   CASE CASS CMDN
   

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5. University
   CLS
   School of Research
   Divisions / Centres
   / Units (x13)
   Labs (~85)
   School of Teaching Support Services
   Specialised
   Scientific Services
   (~ 16)
   Administrative &
   Technical Support
   Affiliated Sites
   (e.g. Postdoc,
   PiCLS, Impact, etc)
   CASE CASS CMDN
   130+
   DISTINCT
   SECTIONS
   

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6. Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4
   

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7. A Better Way of Doing Things
   Events News Publications Profiles Vacancies Awards Other
   Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 Site 5
   

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8. Central
   Content Store
   CLS
   Site
   School
   Site
   Div
   Site
   Lab
   Site
   Content Repos
   Events News
   Publications
   (Managed in
   Pure)
   Profiles
   (via Staff DB)
   Vacancies Awards
   Other
   (Contact Info, Directions,
   Dundee Uni / City info)
   Taxonomy
   Unit Subject
   

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9. Too much complexity!
   

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10. Our Approach
    • The problem
    • 1 size doesn’t fit all
    • Best tool doesn’t necessarily scale
    • Our solution
    • Standardise on a versatile platform (Drupal)
    • Instance per project
    • The Benefits
    • No danger of new functionality or upgrades breaking existing sites
    • Users can have as much freedom or restriction as they wish.
    • Agility
    • Drawbacks
    • Lots of individual sites to maintain
    • Content Sharing
    

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12. Aegir & Drupal
    

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13. How Aegir Works
    • Multi site
    

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14. Aegir & Drupal
    Core (e.g. 7.40)
    profiles
    sites
    all
    modules
    themes
    libraries
    sitename
    modules
    themes
    libraries
    PLATFORM
    

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15. How Aegir Works
    • Multi site
    • Drush
    • Drupal distribution
    • Contributed modules
    • Hosting, provision, eldir
    • Swaps one problem for another…
    

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16. Too much complexity!
    

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17. John Hume
    Drupal Developer (Contractor)
    Previously - Web Developer at
    Dundee University
    https://www.drupal.org/u/littledynamo
    Twitter: @littledynamo1
    

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18. Streamline Your Workflow – Drush Make
    • Build Drupal sites on the fly
    • From predefined list of modules, themes, libraries
    • Patches Too!
    Create Site
    drush make mysite.make
    Create Make File from existing site
    drush make-generate mysite.make
    

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19. Streamline Your Workflow – Drush Make
    • Building Platforms with Drush Make
    

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20. Demo
    • Building a platform using a make file
    • What does a make file look like?
    

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21. Demo - Upgrading a Site with Drush Make
    • Update the version in the make file
    • Build new platform
    • Migrate site
    

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22. Drupalgeddon – Uh-oh!
    • Drupalgeddon - SA-CORE-2014-005
    • How to quickly secure 80 sites?
    • Surely there has to be a better way!
    

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23. Automate all the Things!
    

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24. Automated Upgrade
    1. Detect when updates are available
    2. Build a new Drupal platform
    3. Clone site to new Drupal platform
    4. Test
    5. Push live
    

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25. 1. Detect When Upgrades are Available
    • Core Update module
    • Checks status of Core/Modules/Themes
    • Custom module – Update Trigger Build
    • http://drupal.org/project/update_trigger_build
    • Detects when updates are available
    • Tells Jenkins to build a new Drupal platform
    

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26. 2. Build a New Drupal Platform
    • Continuous Integration Build Server
    • Listen for build requests
    • Initiate the build
    • Allows us to automate building Drupal platforms
    • Can detect build success/failures
    

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27. 2. Build a New Drupal Platform
    • XML based build scripting language
    • Build Drupal platform on the fly
    • Runs Aegir Drush commands to create a Platform
    • Phing Drush Task (https://www.drupal.org/project/phingdrushtask)
    

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28. 4. Test
    • Manual process
    • Visually
    • Key functionality
    • Further Work - Automate with Behat & SimpleTest
    

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29. 5. Push Live
    • Manual process
    • Migrate task in Aegir
    • Delete old platform
    

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30. Demo
    • Automated update process
    • Update Trigger Build module  triggers a Jenkins build
    • Jenkins build  fires Phing script
    • Phing script  runs Aegir drush commands
    • Build platform with updated core/modules/themes
    • Clone site
    

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31. Questions?
    

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