LifeDesk: Codebase & Overview

LifeDesk: Codebase & Overview David P. Shorthouse Vitthal Kudal

Overview • Site creation procedure (demo) • System architecture • Marketing pages • Administrative Drupal install • Directory structure • Deployment • Codebase

Site Creation Demo

DNS & Subdomains • Wildcard DNS entry for *.lifedesks.org • Every LifeDesk has its own subdomain & database • All traffic passed through load balancer(s) to application server(s), which connects to MySQL server(s)

System Architecture • Load Balancer: nginx, FastCGI, PHP • Serves flat HTML marketing pages (some PHP, via FastCGI e.g. search, site creation) • Application Server: Apache, PHP • LifeDesk/Drupal code • Database Server: MySQL

Marketing Pages • Mostly flat HTML pages for high volume • POSTs to administrative Drupal install • Gallery of sites, RSS Feeds • Connection to administrative Drupal db • Search • Downstream error handling (e.g. HTTP 404, 502, etc. errors from application server)

Administrative Drupal Install • Receives POSTed content from marketing pages • Creates database for each site & manages database connections via settings.php • Modules required for multisite • multisite_manager • profile_master

Directory Structure Administrative Installation Individual LifeDesks

Drupal settings.php Files $db_prefix = ""; $base_url = "http://admin.lifedesks.org"; $db_url = "mysqli://lifedesk:lifedesk@localhost/lifedesk_production"; $conf['file_directory_path'] = "files/"; Administrative Installation $db_prefix = ""; $urlParts = explode('.', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']); $subd = $urlParts[0]; $base_url = "http://" . $subd . ".lifedesks.org"; $db_url = 'mysqli://lifedesk:lifedesk@localhost/' . $subd; $conf['file_directory_path'] = "files/" . $subd; $conf['theme_default'] = 'eol'; $conf['maintenance_theme'] = "eol"; Individual LifeDesks

Installation Profiles • Installs modules • Sets variables • Sets permissions • Selects theme

LifeDesks Files • Each contains folders for: • Images • Classification import/export • EOL content partner documents • Directory name same as subdomain AND database

Deployment • Hand-scripted deployment (~ Capistrano) • Prior to deployment: code & db back-up • Update sites script • Similar to Drupal’s update.php • Installs new modules as required • “reads” and applies update hooks

Update Hooks • Drupal convention function classification_update_6103() { $ret = array(); switch ($GLOBALS['db_type']) { case 'mysql': case 'mysqli': $ret[] = update_sql("INSERT INTO term_relation_types (rtid,name) VALUES (11,'replaced name');"); $ret[] = update_sql("INSERT INTO term_relation_types (rtid,name) VALUES (12,'basionym');"); break; case 'pgsql': $ret[] = update_sql("INSERT INTO term_relation_types (rtid,name) VALUES (11,'replaced name');"); $ret[] = update_sql("INSERT INTO term_relation_types (rtid,name) VALUES (12,'basionym');"); break; } return $ret; }

Code Management • Development: local machines & commit to svn • Subversion: trunk, branches, tags • Public access: marketing page download of modules

LifeDesk: Codebase & Overview