BOA Server/Building platforms

Note: This will tell Aegir to create the Transition Network platform (or another platform) with all the modules, themes, libraries and features necessary to run the www.transitionnetwork.org and other websites. Once this is done you can set up the sites and prepare the files.

Important reading:

• http://omega8.cc/how-to-add-custom-platform-properly-140
• http://community.aegirproject.org/node/20

Before you start

1. Read the basics! Get going here: BOA_Server
2. Get access: Contact webproject@transitionnetwork.org if you don't have it to begin the process.
3. Know what's already there: log into the Aegir control panel at https://tn.puffin.webarch.net and familiarise yourself with the platforms and sites you'll be working with.
4. Establish what this platform is for: development, testing, updates, maintenance.

Using Aegir

1. Log into the Aegir control panel at https://tn.puffin.webarch.net (ignore the SSL certificate warning).
2. Once in, go to 'Add Platform' (bottom right) and set the following fields.
   1. Platform Name - should be:

      Transition Network D6 YXXX 

      E.g. Transition Network D6 P004, where;
      1. Y is the environment of the platform: D for Development, S for Staging and P for Production.
      2. X is the build version, zero padded, e.g. '001'. It's best to bump up 'XXX' whenever an new build of the platform happens so it's easy to tell platforms apart. The name MUST be unique, so you'll be forced to change.
   2. Platform Makefile - will be the current version of the makefile on the Transition Network Github account:

      https://raw.github.com/transitionnetwork/transitionnetwork.org-d6.profile/master/transitionnetwork.org-d6.make

   3. Drush make option - should be 'Normal - Discards SCM files' for sites on the Puffin server, as this will prevent all the Git over SSH needing read/write access by a system account to the GitHub repositories. For your own development environment, set it to 'Working copy - preserves SCM files' so that repositories are cloned as working copies, and changes can easily be updated and commits pushed back.
   4. Access should be for 'admin' only at present. You will probably need to edit your account - and associate the admin user as an accessible client.
3. Hit 'Save', and note the new 'Task' appears on the right. After ~5 minutes, the new platform will be created.

Using Drush Make

On the computer you'll be using (either the BOA server, or your own machine), run the commands:

cd /the/directory/you/want/the/docroot/in
wget https://raw.github.com/transitionnetwork/transitionnetwork.org-d6.profile/master/transitionnetwork.org-d6.make
drush make transitionnetwork.org-d6.make .

NOTE if you're doing this on the BOA server (Puffin etc), you'll still need to tell Aegir about the platform -- follow the instructions in 'Using Aegir'm, above, but make sure you change the location to the new directory you put the files in, AND you leave the 'Platform Makefile' empty.

If the platform won't build/verify

Click 'View' on the verify task for the new platform, it's probably because a file or module couldn't be downloaded.

Check the report and fix the error.