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Please move site config back into a file!


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roc97007

Forum User
Junior
Registered: 12/25/05
Posts: 32
angry
This is a suggestion for future versions of geeklog: Please move the site config parameters, like site_url and the cookie url back in a freekin' file where they belong. I know, it's really cool to have a site configuration page, but a mis-setting can easily make the site inaccessible, which makes it impossible to correct without digging into the code to see where in the database you hid the values, which I am doing now. Very frustrating. This was a bad design decision.
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Guest

Anonymous
So why do you post here instead of submitting a feature request?
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roc97007

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Junior
Registered: 12/25/05
Posts: 32
Mostly because I had several sites down (still do) and was (still am) extremely frustrated. But, point taken.
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1000ideen

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Full Member
Registered: 08/04/03
Posts: 1298
It is not necessary to move back the whole configuration but there are some variables which ought to be moved back.

It does not make sense to be able to change a path which then leads to GL to become inaccessible especially when moving a site to another subdirectory or server. I`m in the process of finding out which variables these are.

Any hints Confused:
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beewee

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Registered: 08/05/03
Posts: 969
Location:The Netherlands, where else?
I think that if the siteconfiguration stores the settings in an old fashioned config.php, you can use it both ways..
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www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net
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1000ideen

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Registered: 08/04/03
Posts: 1298
the problem is that you have to notice that, then you have to understand how to do it and finally what is the point when you can change e.g. the $_CONF['path_system'] in the configuration and the next thing is that GL hangs up?

It`s a bit like changing tyres during the car ride... yes, we can!
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Blaine

Forum User
Moderator
Registered: 07/16/02
Posts: 1232
Location:Canada
Tony posted a migration script that allows you to update the key site config settings and move sites.

Ideally, this script would be cleaned up and made into admin/recovery.php and part of the distribution.
Geeklog components by PortalParts -- www.portalparts.com
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1000ideen

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Full Member
Registered: 08/04/03
Posts: 1298
Thanks Blaine. As there had been no instruction I was reluctant with using the script. As far as I can understand it changes these things Admin Url, HTML Path, Themes Path, Log Path, Language Path, correct? It doesn`t zip up anything or so? There was a backup script that zipped up the site which can be a problem if it is a large one.

Are these the variables that could make GL hang up? With GL 1.5.2 it might be easier and more consequent to write the variables into the siteconfig again. There is the danger that a new admin makes changes and has hardly any chance to undo.

Even if you kreep into the MySQL it has become much more difficult as those variables have a "magic" figure in front of them. So one has to count the characters. I just learned that the other day.
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roc97007

Forum User
Junior
Registered: 12/25/05
Posts: 32
dizzy
Yes there are work-arounds, although not well documented and not for the faint of heart.

I think the main point is this: You will never change the site_url on the configuration screen. This is because if it's correct, you won't need to change it, and if it's not correct, you will not be able to change it. (Because you can't navigate to configuration.php, or you can't authenticate to gain access to the settings, or both.) Therefore, the site url should not be on the configuration screen. The same goes for the admin url and the cookie url.

I haven't proven it yet, but recent experience suggests that it's a double whammy to have the cookie url and the site url on different configuration pages. When you're doing a migration, you must change both so that you can both navigate to the page and properly authenticate to make changes. You will only have one chance to make the change, because if they're out of sync with each other you can't do any further changes from the configuration pages.

The problem is, field changes are not persistent when you go from one configuration page to another, so it's impossible to change site url, admin url and cookie url all at the same time. This (as far as I've been able to tell) is a guaranteed fail.

:banghead:

Therefore, putting these settings in configuration.php at best serves no purpose, and at worst provides an opportunity for a noob admin to render his site unavailable.

But, no problem if you can just manually poke the correct values into a config somewhere, right? Except the location in the database of these strings is not documented (as far as I can tell), and even if you happen to find them, you must have happened to read Dirk's comment (somewhere in the forum -- I forget where now) about keeping the character length field in sync with the character string, or you'll be making changes that have no effect.

I think this (the configuration page) is one of those things that sounded cool but wasn't completely thought out.
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Dirk

Site Admin
Admin
Registered: 01/12/02
Posts: 13073
Location:Stuttgart, Germany
I admit that I haven't read through all the aspects of the discussion, but let me just toss in 2 things:

1) You can actually override most of the config settings in siteconfig.php (originally meant for the rootdebug option, but also works for almost everything else).

2) Geeklog 1.6.0 has a migration option in the install script. That will take care of the cases where you move your site (whether or not the URL changes at the same time).

That should at least cover some of the issues discussed here.

bye, Dirki
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