Why no alias record could be found when I'm trying to sql-sync the database?

Question

I'm trying to synchronize a production database to two development installations at once, instead of having the production database dumped twice.

In aliases.drush.inc file I'm defining a site-list alias as following:

$aliases['dev'] = array(
  'site-list' => array('@dev1', '@dev2'),
);

$aliases['prod'] = array(
  'uri' => 'default/prod',
  'root' => '/docroot/prod',
  'db-url' => 'mysqli://root:pass@localhost/prod',
);  
$aliases['dev1'] = array(
  'uri' => 'default/dev1',
  'root' => '/docroot/dev1',
  'db-url' => 'mysqli://root:pass@localhost/dev1',
);
$aliases['dev2'] = array(
  'uri' => 'default/dev2',
  'root' => '/docroot/dev2',
  'db-url' => 'mysqli://root:pass@localhost/dev2',
);  

Running a Drush command against any of these aliases works fine.

Running drush @dev status works fine too, and displays the status for both @dev1 and @dev2.

However, trying to execute drush sql-sync @prod @dev gives me the following error:

Error: no alias record could be found for @dev

Do you have any clues?

Answer 1

Seems that this feature is buggy in Drush and will be removed. Check this out: drupal.org/node/1316378

Answer 2

Drush 8+ expects a site alias file. For me it turned out that the drush/sites/self.site.yml didn't exist after I've run into a similar error. The alias file didn't got copied properly into a container.

You need to ensure that the alias file exists.

$ drush sql-sync @test @self -y
Error: no alias record could be found for source [error]
@test

Here's a nice article about Drush Site Aliases for Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 and how this actually is supposed to work in detail: https://drupalize.me/tutorial/drush-site-aliases?p=2458

Answer 3

copy the DB array from your settings to your aliases file.