Drupal 7: Do I need to share the Sequences and Authmap tables to share Users between two separate installs?

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tebb's picture

Can anyone help with the following?

I have two installs (separate code, separate databases) of Drupal 7.

The shared users work even sign-on via http/https, the cookie domain, shared sessions (Sessions table), shared user database (Users table), but have two outstanding issues:

1) My installations of Drupal 7 have a Sequences table. I thought that this had been dropped in D6, but it seems to be back.

Questions:

a) What is it now used for?
b) Do I have to share it in Drupal 7? Why/Why not?
c) I created the sites by duplicating the databases and code and editing settings.php. Now, having run for a while, I have slightly different numbers in the two databases. If I need to share the table, what should I do with the sequence number? Use the max of the two? Why?

2) Similar questions about the Authmap table.

Questions:

a) What is it for? I'm thinking of using Janrain, at least temporarily.
b) Does Authmap have to be shared? When using Janrain / not using Janrain?
c) Last time I looked it was empty. Is that because I'm just using Drupal's Users table so far?

Any assistance gratefully received.

Comments

I would like to know the

kerios83's picture

I would like to know the answer to.

I was curious about this and

mile23's picture

I was curious about this and here's a relevant issue thread: [#719730]

Especially: http://drupal.org/node/719730#comment-2639582

A partial answer to my own question.

tebb's picture

OK, now that I understand all this a lot better, here's an update.

Sequences:

There is a sequences table in D7.
There was a different sequences table in D5.
The upgrade to D7 drops the sequences table if it exists.

All this table seems to be used for is to hold a single number.

I can only find this number used in 2 places:

  • to create 'action identifiers' : aid, a unique id for a D7 action, as in triggers and actions.
  • to create 'batch identifiers' : for progressive (maybe?) batch processes for example: when you update modules, the id in the url comes from this number.

So ... my guess is that you do not have to share the sequences table, ... but you can share it if you want to and it will not hurt.

The only advantage I can see of sharing it is that if you later want to merge your two databases, the action and batch id's will still be unique.

Authmap:

May be used by contributed modules and the core user to keep track of mechanisms for authenticating users, but see this discussion about whether to remove or change the use of the AuthMap table for D8.

http://drupal.org/node/817118

Hope this helps someone.

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