Remote Administration environment¶

Databases¶

Databases copied to the RA environment will only remain as long as a Security Update branch is deployed and undergoing testing.

You can scrub your databases to prevent sensitive data from being copied into the RA environment. For more information about creating scrub scripts to clean any sensitive data, see the Scrubbing a Drupal database environment article on the Acquia Help Center.

Deploy hooks¶

Hooks that are in the common directory (usually hooks) will run on all environments, including RA. Due to differences between the RA environment and the other environments, these hook scripts occasionally result in unexpected behaviors or task failures, which can cause the RA automated update process to fail.

If you have scripts in the common directory, they can be modified slightly to prevent them from running on the RA environment. The following example includes an if statement to include in the scripts that will allow them to run normally on all environments except for RA:

#!/bin/sh
#
#Standard hook variables here
#
site="$1"
target_env="$2"

if [ "$target_env" != "ra" ]; then
     drush @$site.$target_env updatedb --yes
fi

Alternately, move any hooks located in the common directory to the development, stage, and/or production directories instead.

Files and the Stage File Proxy module¶

Production files are not copied into the RA environment. Instead, the Stage File Proxy module is implemented. The module is added to the repository and enabled on the RA environment only. It has no effect on production environments. This module sends file requests to the production environment and copies the production file in the RA environment. This saves both time and space. Files uploaded by other means, or theme images or CSS using the Drupal file structure rather than a theme folder, will not appear in the RA environment.

Stage File Proxy is incompatible with the following modules:

• FileField Sources

• Fast 404 – Adding the following to your website’s settings.php file will ensure that Fast 404 does not interfere with the functionality of Stage File Proxy:

  if (!isset($_ENV['AH_SITE_ENVIRONMENT']) || $_ENV['AH_SITE_ENVIRONMENT'] != "ra") fast_404_ext_check();
  

Stage File Proxy does not support subfolders within your Drupal user files directory. Any images or other files within subfolders will not be displayed correctly in the RA environment.

If you are running these modules, you should deploy the Security Update to a different testing environment as soon as it is available.

Memcache disabled¶

Memcache is not enabled in the RA environment. It may be enabled in your other environments, but should result in little to no impact to your website(s) when testing in the RA environment. The recommended memcache include statement should already be present in your settings.php file. Select the configuration appropriate for your version of Drupal:

• Configuration for Drupal 8
  

  if (isset($settings['memcache']['servers'])) {
    // Memcache settings.
    $settings['cache']['default'] = 'cache.backend.memcache';
  }
  

• Configuration for Drupal 7
  The first two of these settings cause Drupal to use Memcached instead of MySQL for data that is normally stored in database caches. The third setting (cache_class_cache_form) ensures that the cache_form table is assigned to non-volatile storage.

  if (isset($conf['memcache_servers'])) {
    $conf['cache_backends'][] = './sites/all/modules/memcache/memcache.inc';
    $conf['cache_default_class'] = 'MemCacheDrupal';
    $conf['cache_class_cache_form'] = 'DrupalDatabaseCache';
  }
  

Be sure to validate that the cache_backends path is the actual path to the Memcache module in your application’s docroot.

If you are using a different include statement related to memcache in any of your settings.php files, Acquia strongly recommends replacing it with the previous statement and deploying to your production environment. Once the change is deployed to production, websites deployed to the RA environment during step one of the update process will no longer be dependent on memcache while running on that environment.

Domains¶

The RA environment is provisioned with a single Acquia Cloud subdomain similar to your Development, Stage, and Production environments. Additional domains can be added to the RA environment from the Acquia Cloud Domains page. Instructions for adding domains are available at Managing your domains.

Your DNS provider must point your domain names to the IP address of the RA environment to ensure requests for that domain name are directed to the correct location on the RA servers. You can add the domain names to your local hosts file in order to test locally.