Multiple Sites with One eZ installation. ( Potential Problems on the horizon )

Monday 13 September 2010 3:35:28 am

Multiple Sites with One eZ installation. ( Potential Problems on the horizon )

1. Autoload is not site specific.
2. Log files are not written based on individual sites.

Autoload is not site specific.
Each site may require different classes from different extensions, yet they might be using the same class name or file name. Equally, with the creation of the var directory for each siteaccess. It makes sense that the autoload should be found with in that var directory.
Part of the problem is telling the system which autoload to include, due to the siteaccess being discovered in "index.php" after some classes have initially been loaded.
Another part of the problem, "ezautoloadgenerator.php" the creation of the mapping array, doesnt have a way to know which siteaccess to use. Equally it doesnt know where to then save the new siteaccess specific "ez_kernel.php". ie within the "VarDir" value in the "site.ini.append.php".
The trickiest part will be figuring out how to deal with the "index.php".

Log files are not written based on individual sites.
The way eZDebug is set up, at present. The paths to the log file locations are hardcoded into the public variable "LogFiles". A hack would be to override this public variable with a SiteAccess specific location for each of the logs. A better solution would be to add another method to eZDebug to do this for us, similar to the eZDebug::updateSettings().

Monday 13 September 2010 10:02:16 am

I would also add that modifying the template look (Design >> Look) modifies the global settings instead of a specific siteaccess.

Saturday 18 September 2010 8:33:52 pm

Hello,

when you say "Multiple Sites with One eZ installation. ( Potential Problems on the horizon )" do you mean 1 install of Ez and One database or one install and many database.

for both case :

• as the install of ez is unique, as soon as you have an error in an extension, it will generate logs : so why do you want to separate logs : it is easier to see it and correct ot.
• for autoloads the autoloads files is hsut an array but it means tahats you have to do good code which take contasnt from your current siteaccess.

For me , as i use it evreyday in my intranet websute factory, your two issues are not so potentials problems but goods solutions to have feedback in one file ( as we speak of the logs issues).

i hope my point of view will answer your questions

Paris, France

Monday 04 October 2010 12:01:58 am

Hi Chris,

You are certainly correct in as far as running multiple "sites" off a single install isn't trivial. I spent months figuring it out and have got it nailed.

What's worse is the number of different ways there are of doing it and no authoritative documentation explaining the procedure.

One point where you are perhaps not 100% with is with separate logging.

If you employ the extension-siteaccess method, where each extension is a new "site", you simply edit the site.ini for each one and ensure you edit the LogDir settings for each, so you have a nice logging dir hierarchy under var/log/<your_site>/error.log (for example) see here: http://doc.ez.no/eZ-Publish/Technical-manual/4.x/Reference/Configuration-files/site.ini/FileSettings

There are of course decisions to be made about multiple databases. I went for a single DB and multiple extensions which is working well. I used a single DB because the sites were related and shared the use of the same custom-tags. So changing the value of a setting that a custom-tag in another site relies on, means it is updated everywhere it is used, regardless of which site it's in.

I'm not sure what you mean about having to alter a class for an extension. If you're talking simple design extensions, then there is no need for separate classes. If you want to have some specific OO functionality called from each extension, think of the problem differently: Why not create a separate extension soley for this class and in the classes logic, differentiate between siteaccesses on that level instead - if that makes sense?

Cheers
Russ

Russell Michell, Wellington, New Zealand.
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