Customizing settings.php

Background

"Sites Folder"

Aegir was designed around multi-site. Because of this, it always uses the domain-specific "sites folder" for settings, files and backups.

    sites/dev.myproject.mydevshopserver.com/settings.php
    sites/dev.myproject.mydevshopserver.com/files

Be aware that the sites/default/settings.php file is not used at all.

Do not edit Settings.php.

Do not write changes directly to your site's settings.php file. It is written automatically.

Settings.php includes

To allow users to make customizations to settings.php, aegir and devshop include certain files from elsewhere.

To see exactly what files are included, you can open a working settings.php file for a working environment.

Possible include files:

• sites/all/settings.devshop.php

• sites/default/settings.devshop.php

• sites/ENVIRONMENT.PROJECT.DEVMASTER-HOSTNAME/local.settings.php

<?php

   # Include devshop environment configuration settings, if there is any.
    if (file_exists(__DIR__ . '/../all/settings.devshop.php')) {
      include_once(__DIR__ . '/../all/settings.devshop.php');
    }

    if (file_exists(__DIR__ . '/../default/settings.devshop.php')) {
      include_once(__DIR__ . '/../default/settings.devshop.php');
    }

    # Additional host wide configuration settings. Useful for safely specifying configuration settings.
    if (is_readable('/var/aegir/config/includes/global.inc')) {
      include_once('/var/aegir/config/includes/global.inc');
    }

    # Additional site configuration settings.
    if (is_readable('/var/aegir/devmaster-0.x/sites/ENVIRONMENT.PROJECT.DEVMASTER-HOSTNAME/local.settings.php')) {
      include_once('/var/aegir/devmaster-0.x/sites/ENVIRONMENT.PROJECT.DEVMASTER-HOSTNAME/local.settings.php');
    }

?>

DevShop Project and Environment Variables

A server environment variable is written in settings.php. You can check them if you need environment-specific settings.

  # This site's devshop project name and environment name.
  $_SERVER['DEVSHOP_ENVIRONMENT'] = 'production';
  $_SERVER['DEVSHOP_PROJECT'] = 'thinkdrop';

For example, you can disable all caches in all environments except for production:

```php
if ($_SERVER['DEVSHOP_ENVIRONMENT'] != 'production') {
    $conf['cache'] = 0;                       // Page cache
    $conf['page_cache_maximum_age'] =  0;     // External cache TTL
    $conf['preprocess_css'] = FALSE;          // Optimize css
    $conf['preprocess_js'] = FALSE;           // Optimize javascript
    $conf['views_skip_cache'] = TRUE;         // Views caching
 }

Remote Servers

If you are using Remote Servers to host your sites, please be aware of the Verify/RSYNC System.

All code is stored on the server_master, and is copied to remote servers via RSYNC during the provision-verify command.

This Rsync will also delete files if they are removed from server_master.

When modifying settings.php using these includes, do so on the server_master server (or in your git repository.). Then, Verify the environment. The Verify task will copy the custom settings to remote server.