Remote Administration environment¶

Databases¶

Databases copied to the RA environment will only remain as long as a security update branch is deployed and undergoes testing.

You can use Cloud Hooks to scrub your databases to prevent sensitive data from being copied into the RA environment. For more information about using Cloud Hooks, see Automating with Cloud Hooks.

Deploy hooks¶

Hooks in the common directory (typically hooks) will run on all environments, including RA. Due to differences between the RA environment and the other environments, these hook scripts can 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, you can modify them slightly to prevent them from running on the RA environment. The following example includes an if statement to include in the scripts allowing them to run as expected 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, won’t display in the RA environment.

Stage File Proxy is incompatible with the following modules:

• FileField Sources

• Fast 404: Adding the following code to your website’s settings.php file will ensure Fast 404 doesn’t interfere with the features of Stage File Proxy:

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

Stage File Proxy doesn’t support subfolders within your Drupal user files directory. Any images or other files within subfolders won’t be displayed as expected in the RA environment.

If you are running these modules, you must deploy the security update to a different testing environment as soon as it’s available.

Memcache disabled¶

Memcache is not enabled in the RA environment. It may be enabled in your other environments, but should result in minimal impact to your website(s) when testing in the RA environment. The recommended memcache include statement must already be present in your settings.php file. Select the configuration appropriate for your version of Drupal:

• Configuration for Drupal 8
  See Enabling Memcached on Cloud Platform for the recommended D8 settings.

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

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

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

If you are using a different include statement related to memcache in your settings.php files, Acquia strongly recommends replacing it with the previous statement and deploying to your production environment. After 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 like your Development, Stage, and Production environments. Other domains can be added to the RA environment from the Acquia Cloud Domains page. Instructions for adding domains are available at Managing domains.

Your DNS provider must point your domain names to the IP address of the RA environment ensuring 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 to test locally.