Ok, so a current project i’m working on is rolling out potentially hundreds of sites..
All of these sites are using the same base, but have different configuration, design and data for each one..

A problem has been how to roll all these sites out, while keeping them easy to update with bug fixes and modifications..

Here’s my solution..

Firstly we start with the config files.. app.yml and view.yml are very site individual, so what do you do if you want some site specific settings?

Well, in your app/config folder, create an app_local.yml and a view_local.yml - these will be your local config files, while the app.yml and view.yml contain settings that are the same for all of your sites…

Here’s an example of how the app.yml and app_local.yml would work from my sites..

all:
  #parameters for the gallery and avatar directories and sizes
  galleries:
    size_limit:         30
    limit:              20
    gallery_count:      25
    upload_dir:         /images/media/galleries/uploads
    allowed_image_types: [image/jpeg, image/jpg, image/pjpeg, image/gif, image/png, image/bmp, image/tiff]
    allowed_video_types: [video/mov, movie/quicktime, video/mpeg, video/x-ms-asf, video/x-msvideo, video/x-ms-wmv]

And here’s my app_local.yml

prod:
  #MUST EDIT THESE PARAMETERS - FOR PRODUCTION ONLY
    site_name:              Skeleton Site
    cookie:                 skeleton
    site_domain:            skeleton.com
    site_support_email:     support@

    merchant:
      id:                   4
      pass:                 password

all:
	#SHOULD EDIT THESE PARAMETERS
  #the selected attributes for the member profiles - eg, what profile questions to ask.. refer to db
  member:
    attributes:           [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25]

  swf:
    heading_font:         DeliciousHeavy

---

Ok.. so hopefully the division is starting to make sense…

Now we need to configure the handlers… This part requires some small hacks of the symfony core files..

lets start with app.yml (note the paths are my personal nix paths.. im presuming you know where your symfony core files are)

open up /usr/local/lib/php/symfony/symfony.php and at around line 97, add this in:

  if ($file = $configCache->checkConfig($sf_app_config_dir_name.'/app_local.yml', true))
  {
    include($file);
  }

ok, now we move on to the view_local.yml…

Open up /usr/local/lib/php/symfony/view/sfPHPView.class.php

At about line 151, add in the following (NOTE: THIS HAS BEEN UPDATED TO INCLUDE VALIDATION)

$viewConfigFile = $this->moduleName.'/'.sfConfig::get('sf_app_module_config_dir_name').'/view_local.yml';
if($file = sfConfigCache::getInstance()->checkConfig(sfConfig::get('sf_app_module_dir_name').'/'.$viewConfigFile, true))
{
	require $file;
}

now we need to add in the handlers for both files..

Open up /usr/local/lib/php/data/symfony/config/config_handlers.yml

Add in there, basically anywhere, the following:

modules/*/config/view_local.yml:
  class:    sfViewConfigHandler

config/app_local.yml:
  class:    sfDefineEnvironmentConfigHandler
  param:
    prefix: app_

Ok.. that takes care of your config files!!!

Now what i do for the css is have a site.css file, which is the only thing i change for each site… When i have conflicting css classes I can get lazy and just add !important to the end of the attribute.. But deal with this as you like..

Each site also has it’s own main app template. If you’ve designed the site in lovely css design, you shouldnt have too many problems changing the look and feel for each site individually.

As a final touch, with the help of the polymorph, here’s a sexy perl script that handles the rollout…

#!/usr/bin/perl

$SITELIST  = "sitelist.live";
$SRCDIR    = "/opt/***/skeleton";
$EXCLUDE   = "/opt/***/rsync.live";
$TARGETDIR = "/opt/***/";
$RSYNC	   = "rsync";
$USER	   = "***";
$SERVER    = "target_ip";
$RM	   = "/bin/rm";

########################## 8< No User Servicable Parts Beyond This Point 8< ##########################

my $sitecount = 0;

open CONFFILE, $SITELIST or die "Can't open $SITELIST to read!";
while ()
{
   chomp($_);
   $sites[$sitecount++] = $_;
}

print “—————————————————————————\n”;
print “A: Upload all sites.\n”;

for (my $j = 0; $j < $sitecount; $j++)
{
   print "$j: Upload $sites[$j]\n";
}
print "---------------------------------------------------------------------------\n";

chomp($uploadSite = );

$uploadSite =~ s/[A-Z]/[a-z]/g;

if ($uploadSite eq ‘a’)
{
   $start = 0;
   $end  = $sitecount;
}
elsif (($uploadSite !~ /[a-z]/) && ($uploadSite < $sitecount))
{
   $start = $uploadSite;
   $end   = $uploadSite + 1;
}
else
{
   die "Invalid site selected.\n";
}

# print "Removing cache and logs ...\n";
# $CMD = "$RM -rf $SRCDIR/cache/* $SRCDIR/log/*";
# `$CMD`;

for ($i = $start; $i < $end; $i++)
{
   print "Removing Cache & Logs ...\n";
   $CMD = "$RM -rf $TARGETDIR$sites[$i]/cache/* $TARGETDIR$sites[$i]/log/*";
   `$CMD`;

   print "Uploading site $sites[$i]\n";
   #print $EXCLUDE."\n";

   $CMD = "cd $sites[$i]; $RSYNC --delete -avz --exclude-from=$EXCLUDE . $USER\@$SERVER:$TARGETDIR$sites[$i]";
   $RESULT = `$CMD`;

   print $RESULT;
   print "\n\n";
}

print "\n\nCOMPLETE!\n";

I really hope this made sense, if not, please ask any questions.

Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 11:37 am and is filed under CSS, PHP, Symfony, YAML. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.