Storing sensitive information outside of your codebase¶

secrets.settings.php file¶

Storing sensitive credentials in a secrets file instead of in your website’s database means your private data will not exist in your database backups, allowing you to distribute database backups to team members who may need a database snapshot, but not full access to external systems.

To create and use a secrets file with your website, complete the following steps:

1. Connect to your server using SSH.

2. Navigate to the /mnt/files/[sitename].[env]/ directory, where [sitename] is your website’s name and [env] is your website’s environment. For more information about your sitename, see the Sitename definition page.

3. If the secrets.settings.php file does not already exist, create it.

   Important

   Do not create the file in /mnt/gfs/[sitename].[env]/files/, as files in the directory are publicly accessible.

4. To make the secrets file available to your application, add the lines in the following example to the appropriate location based on your installed product:

   • Cloud Platform: To your website’s settings.php file

   • Site Factory: To a post-settings-php hook named secrets.php

     Important

     Add the secrets file to all Site Factory environments. During the Site Factory staging process, the secrets.settings.php file will not copy down to lower environments.

     $secrets_file = sprintf('/mnt/files/%s.%s/secrets.settings.php', $_ENV['AH_SITE_GROUP'],$_ENV['AH_SITE_ENVIRONMENT']);
     
     if (file_exists($secrets_file)) {
        require $secrets_file;
     }
     

   Since the code uses $_ENV['AH_SITE_ENVIRONMENT'] to build the link to the secrets.settings.php file, you can provide unique files for each of your website’s environments.

Using the nobackup directory¶

You can also create a special nobackup directory where you can place files containing sensitive credentials. For information about using the method, see Storing private information in the file system.