Configuring Aegir to Set Custom File Paths

Question

What is the best way to modify the file paths for a site deployed using Aegir?

Aegir installs sites with the file paths pointing in this format:

sites/<sitename>/files

(This path being relative to the site's platform)

What is the best way to change it to a NAS mount, mounted at, say, /var/nasmount ? For e.g., for a site called firstsite.com, the file paths would be:

/var/nasmount/firstsite.com/files
/var/nasmount/firstsite.com/files/tmp

and so on, along with the the corresponding entries in the site's apache conf file.

These lines appear in /var/aegir/.drush/provision/platform/provision_drupal_settings.tpl.php, but I am reluctant to change here as this is from 'core' Aegir (if you will):

  $conf['file_directory_path'] = 'sites/<?php print $this->uri ?>/files';
  $conf['file_directory_temp'] = 'sites/<?php print $this->uri ?>/files/tmp';

Should this be done in:

• provision_drupal_settings.tpl.php file above?
• Somewhere else?

Ideally, this change would be done once so all sites deployed via Aegir have this in place, and these changes survive the re-verify process of a site and/or platform.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The answer is to mv siltes/firstsite.com/files to /var/nasmount, then create a symbolic link to it.
(from inside your sites/firstsites.com directory, mkdir /var/nasmount/firstsite.com, mv ./files /var/nasmount/firstsite.com, ln -s /var/nasmount/firstsite.com/files files).

I would put this in a script so this becomes a drush command, then make it run at the end of the aegir create a site process.

I'm not an expert of where to put this script and/or how to create it.

Answer 2

Edit /var/aegir/config/includes/global.inc and put in it:

<?php
$conf['file_directory_path'] = '/var/nasmount/<?php print $this->uri ?>/files';
$conf['file_directory_temp'] = '/var/nasmount/<?php print $this->uri ?>/files/tmp';

This will be applied globally to all sites. If you only want to make this change for one or two sites, create a new file called 'local.settings.php' in the site dir (same level as settings.php) and put the change in there.

This is the best way of doing this without hacking templates or messing up your system with symlinks.

See also the documentation at http://community.aegirproject.org/node/71

Answer 3

If you edit edit /var/aegir/config/includes/global.inc, as mig5 is proposing, and the sites are running on remote servers (not on Aegir master), then you should additionally verify the remote servers in Aegir, in order to get the changes in /config synchronised on remote servers.

See http://community.aegirproject.org/node/71