Drupal Workshop

Introduction to Drupal

Part 2: User/role management, Choosing/installing contributed modules, Transferring a site between servers

Disclaimer and Copyright

This presentation was created by Jennifer Hodgdon of Poplar ProductivityWare LLC.

This presentation is placed in the public domain.

You are therefore granted permission to use and modify this presentation as you wish. However, an attribution to the source is always appreciated.

Information contained here is believed to be accurate, but is presented with no warranty as to its accuracy. Use at your own risk.

Users, Roles, and Permissions

Drupal has a flexible and powerful Permissions system, composed of the following elements:

User: Anyone who visits your site. Permission: The ability to see or do something on the site (e.g.,

see the page at a particular URL, add a comment, etc.). Role: A named set of permissions on your site. Users can be

assigned to multiple roles, and they have all the permissions of each role they’re part of.

Anonymous user: Special role for all non-logged-in visitors to your site.

Authenticated user: Special role for all logged-in visitors to your site.

Choosing Contributed Modules

Find modules drupal.org/project/modules - filter by topic drupal.org/documentation - Structure Guide and Administration Guide pages

sometimes suggest modules Drupal User Group meetings, Drupal camps, DrupalCon – Suggestions from

other Drupal users Evaluate modules

Issue queue: Are there many open issues? Are they being addressed? Updates: When was the last commit (is it in active development)? When was

the first commit (how long has it been around)? When was the last version released? Does it have a “stable” version, or only alpha/beta/development?

Usage statistics: How many sites are using this module? Documentation: Does it have any (may need to download and check for a

README.txt file)? Does it make sense? Ask around (Drupal User Group)

Transferring a SiteBetween Servers - First time transfer

1. Copy all the files (the whole Drupal directory tree) from the source server to the destination server.

2. Set up a database (name and user/password) on the destination server (using phpMyAdmin or hosting control panel).

3. Edit the sites/default/settings.php file on the destination server to point to the new destination database name, host, user, and password (using a text editor).

4. Export the entire source database to a file (using phpMyAdmin, format “SQL”, and optionally gzip compression) .

5. Import the database export file into the destination database (using phpMyAdmin).

Transferring a SiteBetween Servers –

Ongoing MaintenanceMake the “live” site the source for database

updates (content, settings, etc.).

Use the “Backup and Migrate” module to transfer database updates from “live” to “test” server.

Test module and theme updates on the “test” server. When they are working, copy the sites/all folder to the “live” site.