UPDATE Network Manager has been released for 5 6 and 7.
I'm releasing a new module soon and wanted to get some feedback on a screencast that I did. It's a project called the Network Manager (http://drupal.org/project/network_manager) and it helps you manage / maintain your sites all from within one site (given permissions set correctly for mysql user).
Here are links to the screencast (Jing forces it to be in 5 minute segments) --
Part 1 - http://bit.ly/PGu8J
Part 2 - http://bit.ly/yR6Zy
Part 3 - http://bit.ly/BLWrU
Feedback is much appreciated. I think this helps solve issues of management when it comes to scaling up and it's something I'm very open to adding / modifying features based on community input. Also if there are others interested in joining efforts please let me know. Already this module has saved me a lot of run around time in the grunt work area just be aggregating information together into one display. It's in a documented and stable state so I'm planning on releasing it next week for a version 1.
Comments
Publish release?
I would check it out, but don't see a published release. You planning to publish a release?
Released!
Version 6 contains the Network Manager & Network Connector modules. Currently you can only connect to Drupal 5 and Drupal 7 sites, not run the Manager from them. If you have databases on the same server to run multiple Drupal sites give this a whirl.
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
How does network manager
How does network manager compare to say aegir?
It'll be out next week, I
It'll be out next week, I just like to tease before anything comes out. As for Aegir I have to download and do a full comparison but for right now this appears to be much lighter weight and more about giving overview information about the sites on your network. I'm not sure if Aegir can oversee 5 6 and 7 sites but Network Manager comes with a connector module for all 3 versions. A Drupal 6 site needs to have the Manager installed but this will help you oversee sites that potentially live outside of a traditional multisite or live in a different version of Drupal since we all know we typically don't upgrade everything we work on at the same time.
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
cool!
cool!
Looks promising... I would
Looks promising...
I would have checked it out already if it was in CVS
it's up now.
its up as a full release for 5 6 and 7.
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
It'll be up tomorrow
It'll be up tomorrow along with the Assignment Studio and Rubric modules. Sorry, semester launch is a biotch and I wanted to give the modules a few days of stress / live environment to feel confident in releasing them as a full / stable version 1 release. Some issues have been smoothed out as well in configuration / directions.
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
Best. Idea. Ever.
This mod solves a LOT of issues for me. One quick question, tho -- how to have a single admin logon w/o using Domain Access, etc. (multisite with separate db's)? I'd love to be able to use the cron links, etc without signing on to each site individually.
Thanks!
Ha, Nice title.
We have our user's table shared across the infrastructure so the userid's all line up which helps but isn't necessary. The main way we do it is that we have a module called webaccess that taps into PSU's webaccess authentication system. It would be nice if there was a way this module could sorta auto log you in at all the sites in your network or tell you if it's possible. Since this is mostly an admin tool I don't see why that'd be a big deal (as long as it's a legit login :) ) bc you still need the permissions needed on each site in order to change the settings.
Any one know how to do a "remote" login to a site from another one? Seems like there'd have to be someway to do it just on the basis of how you can login to this site w/ the name@drupal.org type of naming convention. As I've said before I'm very open to improving the feature set of this modules as well as participation from the community to make this something that serves everyone's needs effectively; not just higher ed.
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
some ideas
Thanks for the quick reply.
I'm looking into a server-side authentication sys such as CAS...maybe that's the way I'll have to go. I don't want users being able to login to each other's sites, so as long as I can configure this to be something that only authenticates the super user I'll be OK. Maybe I can share the user table and limit the authentication to the super user only....possible??
hmm... might be a good
hmm... might be a good question to open up to the multisite group as it's own topic. I'm unsure of what you'd need to share cross sites if you don't have a single-sign-on system like cosign / webaccess. Part of our system is that the authenticated user has no more rights then anonymous one so until you're some other role, having "access" doesn't mean much.
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
u r correct
Yup, I am getting a little off-topic here. I'll dig around some more on the groups and see what folks are doing to accomplish this. I can't be the only one who wants to admin my multisites w/o logging in each time.
Great work on the module -- can't wait for the added functionality to arrive.
thanks!
great module
This will be totally awesome once you start knocking through that roadmap. This seems like exactly the thing to manage a few mulitisites.
Aegir is nice, but even understanding what it is takes time, and then you need root on your server to install it. Great for dev shops and hosts, but what about a module for lone sysadmins with multiple sites?
Thanks
This module is an attempt to increase access to information for non-technical people. I've gotten a lot of ?'s about multisite stuff and this is to help handle the scaleability questions when it comes to management. What I'd love to see w/ the connector module is a type of "verify administer permissions" type of deal. The issue being, our architecture I'm bto108 and user 1 on every site and I know not everyone has that setup when they manage a multitude of sites (might be btopro, bto108, user 1, user x on other sites) but still want to be able to execute a standardization of settings across the network. The goal being instead of just seeing that Clean URLs is off on 3 sites, you could actually say set them to on on those 3 sites. All hopefully ajaxed and from one page as long as it's verified that you have the permission to do so. Still a ways off but I'm starting to focus on the project more and more as the semester calms down.
What little I've seen in the setup and from others about Aegir it does seem like more of a hosting solution then a small dev shop or infrastructure setup like I've got going on.
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
As I move forward in my grand scheme...
...of centralized administration, I'll deploy and test your module.