Configuring Multiple Web Servers

Aegir 0.4 instructions

See the "Remote web servers" section of INSTALL.TXT

There is no longer any need for Drush or Provision (the backend system) to be installed on remote web servers.

OLD instructions for Aegir 0.3

Set up webserver2

Create the aegir user.

Add user aegir to group www-data.

Add use visudo to enable user aegir to run apache2ctl. (See instructions at Hosting Wizard > Provisioning on webserver1.)

Install drush. Might be good to put it in the same location where it resides on webserver1.

The following instructions assume you have created an alias for drush and put it in user aegir's environment. (See How to Create an Alias for Drush.)

Become user aegir and install drupal at the file system location where you'd like the new platform to reside on this system.

Install provision in aegir's home directory. (INSTALL.txt suggests that aegir's home directory be /var/aegir.)

Setup ssh keys

Generate ssh keys allowing password-less authentication to webserver2 by user aegir. Here are some good instructions: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/submitted/ssh_setting.html

There is a also a document here
SSH login password and passwordless

Configure Aegir on webserver1

Administer > Hosting > Experimental: Check Web servers and submit

Create Content > Web server:

• Web server hostname: This should match the hostname you used for the key. For your sanity, consider installing drush in the same location on both webserver1 and webserver2. Consider keeping Configuration Path and Backup Path consistent as well.
• Submit the form.

Create Content > Platform:

• Name: Consider using a name like "webserver2.example.com (drupal-x.x)"

• Publish path: This corresponds to the path where you installed drupal on webserver2.

• Submit the form.

Run the 'hosting dispatch' command or wait for cron to run it. (See How to Run 'hosting dispatch' Manually.)

Visit the verify task to view it's results. You may see some warnings about the Provision, Webserver and Virtual host configuration paths. Aegir has created these paths for you on webserver2. Assuming you see no errors, proceed to installing your first site on webserver2.

Install a site on webserver2

Create Content > Site:

• Domain name: This needs to be a registered domain name, or it needs to be listed in your /etc/hosts

• Platform: Select the platform that you created on webserver2.

• Submit the form.

Run the 'hosting dispatch' command or wait for cron to run it.

Visit the install task to view it's results. If there are no errors, click the link to the site node and then click "Go to site."