Checklist for Drupal site builder and web admin

Adolfo G. Nasolhttp:// danreb.com

The Topic• I’ve got the idea after attending on the

last Drupal PH meet-up ( Jan 14, 2011)• These are my list of best practice ( I hope

it is )• Drupal site building strategy• Dedicated for web admin, site builder,

Drupal themer and junior developer and Drupal newbie.

• Purpose : to be able to hear feedback from fellow developer about their own strategy and practice.

About Me• I am a Freelancer working as Drupal Site

builder, Drupal Themer / Designer and Website admin

• A total of 1 year and 39 weeks since I started using Drupal and registered as a member in PhDrug -> http://groups.drupal.org/philippines

• Information and Communication Technology Student

• Short Course trainers teaching Dreamweaver and Fireworks

Category checklist

• Deployment • Performance • Administration • Troubleshooting• Security

Deployment : Check “Status report”

Always check “Status report”

Resolve any errors shown in status report

PATH : /admin/reports/status

Deployment : Check “Status report”

Always check “Status report”

Status report page gives you a lot of useful informationfor troubleshooting your Drupal sites and it will allow you to resolve almost 90% of the problem of your Drupal sites just by resolving errors and issues found in this page.

PATH : /admin/reports/status/sqlPATH : /admin/reports/status/php

Check the “Site Information”

• Check if all information define here is correct such as “E-mail address and Site name”.

- use email address ending in sites domain

• Set the default front page, slogan if needed, footer and mission statement

• If you installed Poormans cron module, you can set the time interval in this page for running cron.

Deployment : Check the “ Site Information”

Check “User registration” settings

• The default value of Visitors can create accounts and no administrator approval is required is easily overlooked, and often undesired. Deployment : Check the “ User registration” settings

Path : /admin/user/settings

Check “User registration” settings• If you disable the public registration and choose Only site

administrators can create new user accounts you may also interested removing the link “Request new password” in the login block or page, the module “No request new password” will allow you to do this.

Deployment : Check the “ User registration” settings

Module Download URL : http://drupal.org/project/noreqnewpass

Deployment : Disallow odd usernames

Disallow odd usernames• If you enabled the public registration for your Drupal

sites, It is recommended that you prevent users from registering on your website with some odd usernames like: root, admin, webmaster, administrator etc.

• To prevent this from happening: - Go to Administer > User management >

Access rules > Add rule - Set Access type to Deny - Set Rule type to Username - In Mask type root - Click the Add rule button• Repeat this for every username you don't want to

be created on your site.

Deployment : Disallow odd usernames

Disallow odd usernames

You can also add rule to disallow users who registered using disposable emails, or certaindomain name.

Confirm “Email” settings• Often, placeholder email addresses will be

filled in during development, and should be updated before deployment. Try to start with the correct addresses from the beginning when possible.

• In addition to Drupal's global site mail, email addresses is stored in a variety of places: The admin user's account, contact forms, webforms, ubercart etc.

Deployment : Confirm “ Email” settings

Confirm “Email” settings

Deployment : Confirm “ Email” settings

In every site I’ve maintain, I always set the notification for new security release to send updates to my email account , PATH -> /admin/reports/updates/settings

Adjust “Database logging” row limit• The default row limit of 1000 can wrap quickly, database logging gives you

information for vital debugging when you need it. The average row length is generally around 1kB, so you can boost this up to 100,000 rows and still leave you with a manageable watchdog table.

Deployment : Adjust “Database logging” row limit

PATH : /admin/settings/logging/dblogPATH : /admin/reports/dblog

Note : If your website is running on a shared hosting account, turning off database logging and automatic updates will speed uploading of your Drupal sites.

Use “PhpMyadmin” to remove database overhead, optimize and check your

Drupal’s database regularly

Deployment and Performance : Use PhpMyadmin to repair and optimize Drupal database tables

If you don’t regularlycheck your Drupalsites database, overhead will growbigger and bigger insize and your sitewill slow down loading pages.

Set-up “Cron” • Easiest way is to install “Poormanscron” modules,

download URL is - > http://drupal.org/project/poormanscron

Deployment : Set up cron : Install Poormanscron module

Then in “Site Information” page you canadjust the time intervals of your Drupal sites to run cron.

You can also setup cron in your websitecPanel, information on setting up croncan be found here :http://drupal.org/cron

Poormanscron is now part of Drupal 7

Deployment : Check “Error reporting “

Check “Error reporting ” pagePATH : /admin/settings/error-reporting

Error 403 and Error 404 pages

Deployment : Error 403 and Error 404 pages

• If you don’t want visitors trying to go to restricted directory redirected into user login page, then alternatively you can create a node with some extra information so that your visitors don't ever fall on the default blank 403 access denied page.

• Create the node and remember its node ID• Go back to Administer > Site configuration > Error reporting• Set Default 403 (Access denied) page to the node ID you

just created• Save your settings and repeat the same step for setting up

Error 404 page.• If you want you can also use the Search 404 module , download

URL : http://drupal.org/project/search404

Disable “Error reporting”

Deployment : Disable :Error reporting”

• On a production site, it's best to suppress on-screen error reporting by choosing Write errors to the log.

- Go to Site configuration > Error reporting- Set Error reporting list box to Write errors to log- Save configuration

Deployment : Install Backup and Migrate

Install Backup and Migrate

I Use Backup and Migrate module to backup client Drupal database automatically

Deployment : Install Backup and Migrate

Install Backup and Migrate - I Use Backup and Migrate module to easily extract database and migrate Drupal site.

- Then copy the sites folder To the new server, excluding the file “settings.php”

-Then restore or import the database into the new server

Download URL : http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate

Use “FireFTP” to synchronized and upload files

Deployment : Use “FireFTP” to synchronized and upload files

Use “FireFTP” to synchronized and upload files

Deployment : Use “FireFTP” to upload and synchronized files

Download URL : http://fireftp.mozdev.org/ - FireFTP is an FTP clients extension for Mozilla Firefox

Deployment : Install WYSIWYG editor

Install WYSIWYG for your site users or clients

Deployment : Install WYSIWYG editor

Install WYSIWYG for your site users or clients

I used the combination of the following modules :

• CKEditor - http://drupal.org/project/ckeditor• CKEditor link - http://drupal.org/project/ckeditor_link• CKEditor SWF - http://drupal.org/project/ckeditor_swf• Image resize filter - http://drupal.org/project/image_resize_filter• IMCE - http://drupal.org/project/imce• IMCE Mkdir - http://drupal.org/project/imce_mkdir• IMCE Rename - http://drupal.org/project/imce_rename• IMCE Crop - http://drupal.org/project/imce_crop• Better Formats - http://drupal.org/project/better_formats

WHEW! That’s a lot of modules!

Deployment : Set your “favicon”

Don’t forget to set your “favicon”

A

B

A – If your themes comeswith a favicon icon.

B – Or else you can uploadimage to be use as favicon

I prefer to use the themesdefault favicon, I createfavicon using the onlinegenerator at the URL :http://favicon-generator.org

Check modules and themes directory

• Common mistakes for newbie is to put contributed modules and themes in the wrong directory.

Deployment : Check “modules and themes” directory

Don’t drop contributed modulesand your custom theme in theseDirectory, this is for core modulesAnd core theme only.

Check modules and themes directory

• Put it inside “sites/all/modules” for modules and “sites/all/themes” for your custom theme.

Deployment : Check “modules and themes” directory

You can drop your downloaded contributed modules and themes or custom modules and themes into these directory.

You can create folder named “modules” or “themes” inside this 2 folder and drop your module or theme there.

Check and set Caching mode

Deployment and Performance : Check and set Caching mode

PATH : /admin/settings/performance

Set Page compression and Block Cache

Deployment and Performance : Set Page compression and Block cache

PATH : /admin/settings/performance

Optimize and Gzip CSS and Javascript file

Deployment and Performance : Optimize and Gzip CSS and Javascript file

PATH : /admin/settings/performance

- I use Javascript aggregator module to gzip and minify javascript.URL to download: http://drupal.org/project/javascript_aggregator

- I use cssgzip module to gzip css fileURL to download :http://drupal.org/project/css_gzip

- For maximum performance , you can try to install also boost moduleURL to download :http://drupal.org/project/boost

Confirmation : before CSS and Javascript optimization That’s a lot of http request!

Deployment and Performance : Before optimizing CSS and Javascript

Confirmation : after optimization, only 2 http request, WOW what a great improvement!

Deployment and Performance : Before optimizing CSS and Javascript

Use “Web developer toolbar” to confirm css and javascript file compression

Deployment and Performance : Use “Web developer toolbar”

Uncompressed size

Compressed sizeTake note of the big difference in thefile sizes, really cool!

You can download Web Developer toolbar hereURL : http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/

Use “Yslow” to grade and check performance of your Drupal site

Deployment and Performance : Use “Yslow”

You can download Yslow here in this URL : http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

Test Performance and page speed using the free services of http://www.webpagetest.org

Deployment and Performance : Use webpagetes.org website to measure page speed

According to survey, visitors go leave your site if it doesn’t load within 7 seconds

Check Module Page• Before deploying a site, disable all developer modules. Example : - views_ui - imagecache_ui - masquerade - devel - theme editor• Disable and uninstall module that your site don’t need.• If you delete previously installed modules, you may want

to clean your Drupal site system table, use “System table cleaner” module.

URL : http://drupal.org/project/system_table_cleanerNote : Drupal 7 already included system table cleaner

functionality Deployment and Performance : Check Module Page

PATH : /admin/build/modules

Check “.htaccess”

Deployment and SEO : Check “.htaccess”

Add configuration for ETag

Decide whether to redirectyour visitors to domain withwww prefix or without wwwprefix, good for SEO

Enable Clean URL / check URL aliases

• Enable path module and install pathauto.

Deployment and SEO : Enable clean URL / check URL aliases

You may also install “transliteration” module to handle sanitation of file names.

You may want to set updateaction in pathauto settingsnot to change the url aliasif nodes are updated, this willavoid broken link and SEO Problem.

PATH : /admin/build/path/settings

Ensure “settings.php” is write protected

Security : Ensure "settings.php" is write protected

Make sure settings.php is set to read only

Protecting critical users • I use the following modules to protect critical users, for

example the root user which is User 1 - Protect Critical User : this protect critical user from

being deleted, URL : http://drupal.org/project/protect_critical_users

- Permission Lock : I don’t want to allow my client to play with a bomb, so I restricted them from configuring explosive Drupal permission settings. URL : http://drupal.org/project/permissions_lock

- User protect : Just like user protect but with more

options and much more complicated configuration. URL : http://drupal.org/project/userprotect

Security : Protecting critical users

Disable user 1• Be sure to have at least one user (other than uid 1) that

has the permission administer users from user module.• Login with this account (again other than uid 1)• Go to Administer > User management > Users• Edit user with uid == 1• Set Status to Blocked• Click Save• Now user 1 can't login to your website. No more risk for

password discovery for this account.• Please note that you should check enabled modules code,

sometimes they use user 1 to achieve some tasks. And this could break some modules features. So use with caution.

Security : Protecting critical users

Hide User 1 and change its user login name

• Install User One module from http://drupal.org/project/userone

This module will hide User 1 from user listing page and also control viewing and editing of user one account.

It also allow user 1 to loginwith different name.

Security : Protecting critical users

Remove “.txt” files in the root directory

Deployment and Security : Remove “.txt” files in the root directory

You can skip uploading all this txt files into your production server. Possiblesecurity threat according to some developer.

You may upload and leave this txt file : robot.txtintact

Check allowed “Input format”

Deployment and Security : Check input format

Installed Better format module and you can set the default format for your users and also per content types

URL : http://drupal.org/project/better_formats

Check and configure permissions after enabling new modules

Deployment and Security : Check Permissions

END OF PRESENTATION : Drupalcamp 2011 Philippine Drupal User Groups

END

Presented by : Adolfo G. Nasol

http://danreb.com09195951276

YM : carnielshopSkype : danrebco