Drupal: Testing multisite/domain-access Drupal locally and on a testing server
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 by Sacha Chua
We're using Domain Access to manage a number of related subdomains on a single server. I prefer to develop and test locallly, then push my changes out to a testing server so that other people can try the system. I use the same domain names on my computer and on the test server so that I don't have to make any changes in the database. To switch between them, I comment or uncomment a line like
127.0.0.1 example.com sub1.example.com sub2.example.com
in my /etc/hosts file.
However, Firefox caches the domain name information, and it can be confusing to figure out which server I'm on. The following setup makes this much easier:
- Install Domain Details to show the IP address of the server in your status bar. Good for a quick check - am I on 127.0.0.1 or elsewhere? (NOTE: I started with ShowIP, but it looks like ShowIP caches the information.)
- Install the Clear Cache Button extension.
- Restart your browser and customize your toolbar. Add the Clear Cache button. Click on this before switching sites.
In an ideal world, I'll have a plugin that automatically twiddles my DNS entries, too. =)
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You could also manually edit your settings.php to override local settings. For instance, you could set the footer variable to echo the IP….
I always edit the settings.php to set the site name to " BETA"
Oh, that's even better. =) Thanks for the tip!
I usually use a different favicon for local/test/live sites. I add a 2px red border for the local site, an orange one for the test site, and the regular favicon for the live site.
Throw in some sym links for different sub-sites, or even different versions of modules and themes and local development is a dream.