Edit History

Drupal Patterns

Version 3 (Mike Gifford, 01/23/2012 09:01 am)

1 1 
Drupal is an amazing tool for quickly constructing attractive,
2 1 
functional web sites. It lets you manage large numbers of web sites
3 1 
from a single installation, and (via add-on modules) provides
4 1 
almost any CMS or blog feature you could want.
5 1 






    6
    1
    
    
However, like any powerful tool, Drupal takes some learning. It






    7
    1
    
    
also needs a certain amount of discipline to manage Drupal servers






    8
    1
    
    
without getting into a chaotic mess. The Drupal sysadmin can end up






    9
    1
    
    
trying to navigate a spaghetti of ad-hoc symlinks and face problems






    10
    1
    
    
upgrading, maintaining, monitoring and backing up a large Drupal






    11
    1
    
    
installation.






    12
    1
    
    






    13
    1
    
    
The primary tool for automating Drupal management is






    14
    1
    
    
[Drush](http://drupal.org/project/drush) - a command-line utility






    15
    1
    
    
which can download and update modules, themes and core code, access






    16
    1
    
    
the database, and many other useful functions. Here is an example






    17
    1
    
    
recipe using Drush to manage modules:






    18
    1
    
    






    19
    1
    
    
    define module() {






    20
    1
    
    
      exec { "install-module-$name":






    21
    1
    
    
        cwd => "/var/www/drupal/sites/all/modules",






    22
    1
    
    
        command => "/usr/local/bin/drush dl $name",






    23
    1
    
    
        creates => "/var/www/drupal/sites/all/modules/$name",






    24
    1
    
    
      }






    25
    1
    
    
    }






    26
    1
    
    
    






    27
    1
    
    
    class drupal::modules {






    28
    1
    
    
      drupal::module { [ "admin_menu",






    29
    1
    
    
                         "cck",






    30
    1
    
    
                         "comment_notify",






    31
    1
    
    
                         "contact_forms",






    32
    1
    
    
                         "filefield",






    33
    1
    
    
                         "google_analytics",






    34
    1
    
    
                         "imagecache",






    35
    1
    
    
                         "nodewords",






    36
    1
    
    
                         "views",






    37
    1
    
    
                         "views_attach",






    38
    1
    
    
                         "views_bulk_operations",






    39
    1
    
    
                         "weblinks" ]: }






    40
    1
    
    
    }






    41
    1
    
    






    42
    1
    
    
You can find more about using Drush and Puppet to automate Drupal,






    43
    1
    
    
plus a complete set of recipes for managing Drupal sites, here:






    44
    3
    Mike Gifford
    
Puppet Drupal recipes: [Bitfield Consulting](http://bitfieldconsulting.com/puppet-drupal) or [Evolving Web](http://evolvingweb.ca/story/controlling-your-cloud-puppet).