[EP-tech] Re: Change management

[Jan Ploski]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the quick reply.

It's a relief to hear that only a few configuration items are stored in 
the database - please keep it that way!

IIRC, db attributes for custom fields also need to be created manually, 
so there is need for some synchronization mechanism dev->production. 
Anything else that comes to mind?

Regards,
Jan Ploski

Tim Brody wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-07-26 at 16:04 +0200, Jan Ploski wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Is there a comprehensive list of which EPrints configuration details are
>> stored in the file system and which in the database? Are all
>> configuration settings stored in the database exportable/importable
>> to/from the file system?
>>
>> Background: although little tweaks via GUI may seem appealing for small
>> installations, in general they sound like asking for trouble. Ideally,
>> I'd like to have all configuration changes pass through version control
>> and also through a staging (test) system. This is required for
>> documentation and also for signing off changes by the client before they
>> are brought into production. Is anyone else using EPrints in this
>> manner? Are there recommended administration practices (except for
>> "backup before changes" - restoring backups may be quite problematic if
>> the data moves forward after changes)? Or is everyone just crossing
>> their fingers and tweaking their production EPrints directly?
>
> Hi,
>
> There are no configuration settings stored in the database, except for:
>
>   - the subjects tree
>   - individual user settings
>
> The sensible approach is to store all of your configuration in a
> revision control system (svn or similar). That is, everything below
> archives/[archiveid]/cfg/. This can be periodically committed to reflect
> any changes made via the GUI.
>
> Larger sites will tend to have a development instance and a live
> instance, with these reflected in different branches of your RCS.
>
> And of course, you will want to have a backup strategy for the system as
> a whole (the contents + database).
>
>
>
>
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