Acquia CMS

Preferences

Remote Administration (RA) follows a specific workflow implemented by automation that takes into account subscription-specific preferences. If you are a Remote Administration customer, setting your application update preferences correctly ensures security updates can be smoothly integrated into your workflow.

Reviewing your RA settings

To review your RA application update preferences, completing the following steps:

  1. Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface.
  2. Select the application whose RA settings you want to view.
  3. In the left menu, click RA.

Cloud Platform displays the RA update settings in place for your application.

Modifying your RA settings

RA customers have several available update methods, and whichever method you select influences subsequent options.

To modify your RA settings (such as changing your update settings or removing RA from your application), complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the Remote Administration settings page for your application.
  2. In the upper right of the page, click the Edit icon.
  3. In the Update process list, click the update method you want to use with your application, from the following list:
    • Update and Deploy (default): When a security update is required, Acquia creates a new branch from the branch or tag currently deployed to production, applies security updates, and pushes the branch to the repository. 
      The new branch is then deployed to your RA environment for testing. Acquia notifies you using a ticket that the secure branch is available for testing. RA can deploy the updates to production for you, but will not do so without your explicit approval.
    • Inform only: Acquia informs you of pending updates using a security update notification. No further action is taken without your specific request.
    • Do not inform: Acquia does not inform you of any pending updates. No further action is taken without your specific request. Select the Do not inform method if your website uses continuous integration (CI).
  4. Depending on your selection in the Update process list, Cloud Platform may display additional fields regarding the implementation details for your selected method.

    Update methodDisplayed fieldDescriptionDefault value
    Update and DeployPause untilEnter a date and time to pause RA until that time. After that time, RA will resume its normal schedule.not paused
    Update and DeployUpdate typeSelect from Core and Core and contributed modules to determine the portions of your application you want to update. 
    If you have features that depend on certain versions of contributed or custom modules, you can implement a locking functionality to prevent those specific modules from being updated, and then use the Core and contributed modules update method.
    Core and contributed modules
    Update and DeploySecondary testing environmentAcquia deploys the initial security update branch to the RA environment. After you approve the branch for tagging and final testing, you can have Acquia place this tag on any environment (other than production) for final testing. A fresh copy of the production database will be copied into this environment as a part of this final, pre-production test.Stage
    Update and DeployDeploy on a specific Day/TimeEnter a date and time for RA to deploy the update tag created and approved during Step 2 of the RA update process. Once you enter the date and time, update the existing RA update ticket so that the deploy can be queued to happen on the specified time.Not set
    Update and DeployCopy files from production to testing environmentAcquia strongly recommends you click Yes to ensure accurate and up-to-date tests.Yes
    Update and DeployCopy prod database to testing environmentAcquia strongly recommends you click Yes to ensure accurate and up-to-date tests. 
    For information about creating scrub scripts to remove sensitive data and functionality from your testing environment, see the Databases section of the Environment page.
    Yes
    Update and DeployMerge update tag into development branchDetermines whether or not to merge the tested security update tag into your preferred branch after the tag has been deployed to production. 
    If you click No for this field, your team must ensure the updates are merged into your code on the main branch before your other development work goes into production. Failure to complete this merge could result in a schema mismatch between the recently updated production data and the code that does not include the core or contributed updates provided by RA.
    Yes
    Update and DeployMerge development branchAcquia typically merges updates into master at the end of step three of the update process. If you use a different workflow, enter the exact name of the branch into which the security updates should be merged.Master
    Inform onlyPause untilEnter a date and time to pause RA until that time. After that time, RA will resume its normal schedule.not paused
    Do not inform Does not display any additional preference fields 
  5. Click Save.

RA will now use your selected update settings for your application.