Introduction

eZ Platform allows you to maintain multiple sites in one installation using a feature called siteaccesses.

In short, a siteaccess is a set of configuration settings that is used when the site is reached through a specific address.

When the user accesses the site, the system analyzes the uri and compares it to rules specified in the configuration. If it finds a set of fitting rules, this siteaccess is used.

What does a siteaccess do?

A siteaccess overrides the default configuration. This means that if the siteaccess does not specify some aspect of the configuration, the default values will be used. The default configuration is also used when no siteaccess can be matched to a situation. 

A siteaccess can decide many things about the website, for example the database, language or var directory that are used.

How is a siteaccess selected?

A siteaccess is selected using one or more matchers – rules based on the uri or its parts. Example matching criteria are elements of the uri, host name (or its parts), port number, etc.

For detailed information on how siteaccess matchers work, see Siteaccess Matching.

What can you use siteaccesses for?

Typical uses of a siteaccess are:

• different language versions of the same site identified by a uri part; one siteaccess for one language
• two different versions of a website: one siteaccess with a public interface for visitors and one with a restricted interface for administrators

Both the rules for siteaccess matching and its effects are located in the main app/config/ezplatform.yml configuration file.

Use case: multilanguage sites

A site has content in two languages: English and Norwegian. It has one URI per language: http://example.com/eng and http://example.com/nor. Uri parts of each language (eng, nor) are mapped to a siteaccess, commonly named like the uri part: eng, nor. Using semantic configuration, each of these siteaccesses can be assigned a prioritized list of languages it should display:

• The English site would display content in English and ignore Norwegian content;
• The Norwegian site would display content in Norwegian but also in English if it does not exist in Norwegian.

Such configuration would look like this:

The default scope

When no particular context is required, it is fine to use the `default` scope instead of specifying a siteaccess.

Configuration

Basics

Basic configuration handling in eZ Platform is similar to what is commonly possible with Symfony. Regarding this, you can define key/value pairs in your configuration files, under the main parameters key (like in parameters.yml).

Internally and by convention, keys follow a dot syntax where the different segments follow your configuration hierarchy. Keys are usually prefixed by a namespace corresponding to your application. Values can be anything, including arrays and deep hashes.

Example

Dynamic configuration with the ConfigResolver

In eZ Platform it is fairly common to have different settings depending on the current siteaccess (e.g. languages, view provider configuration).

Scope

Dynamic configuration can be resolved depending on a scope.

Available scopes are (in order of precedence) :

1. global
2. SiteAccess
3. SiteAccess group
4. default

It gives the opportunity to define settings for a given siteaccess, for instance, like in the legacy INI override system.

This mechanism is not limited to eZ Platform internal settings (aka ezsettings namespace) and is applicable for specific needs (bundle-related, project-related, etc.).

ConfigResolver Usage

Dynamic configuration is handled by a config resolver. It consists in a service object mainly exposing hasParameter() and getParameter() methods. The idea is to check the different scopes available for a given namespace to find the appropriate parameter.

In order to work with the config resolver, your dynamic settings must comply internally with the following name format: <namespace>.<scope>.parameter.name.

Both getParameter() and hasParameter() can take 3 different arguments:

1. $paramName (i.e. the name of the parameter you need)
2. $namespace (i.e. your application namespace, myapp in the previous example. If null, the default namespace will be used, which is ezsettings by default)
3. $scope (i.e. a siteaccess name. If null, the current siteaccess will be used)

Inject the ConfigResolver in your services

You can use the ConfigResolver in your own services whenever needed. To do this, just inject the ezpublish.config.resolver service:

Custom locale configuration

If you need to use a custom locale they can also be configurable in ezplatform.yml, adding them to the conversion map:

A locale conversion map example can be found in the core bundle, on locale.yml.

Siteaccess Matching

Siteaccess matching is done through eZ\Publish\MVC\SiteAccess\Matcher objects. You can configure this matching and even develop custom matchers.

To be usable, every siteaccess must be provided a matcher.

You can configure siteaccess matching in your main app/config/ezplatform.yml:

You need to set several parameters:

• ezpublish.siteaccess.default_siteaccess
• ezpublish.siteaccess.list
• (optional) ezpublish.siteaccess.groups
• ezpublish.siteaccess.match

ezpublish.siteaccess.default_siteaccess is the default siteaccess that will be used if matching was not successful. This ensures that a siteaccess is always defined.

ezpublish.siteaccess.list is the list of all available siteaccesses in your website.

(optional) ezpublish.siteaccess.groups defines which groups siteaccesses belong to. This is useful when you want to mutualize settings between several siteaccesses and avoid config duplication. Siteaccess groups are treated the same as regular siteaccesses as far as configuration is concerned.

ezpublish.siteaccess.match holds the matching configuration. It consists in a hash where the key is the name of the matcher class. If the matcher class doesn't start with a \ , it will be considered relative to eZ\Publish\MVC\SiteAccess\Matcher (e.g. Map\Host will refer to  eZ\Publish\MVC\SiteAccess\Matcher\Map\Host)

Available matchers

Compound siteaccess matcher

The Compound siteaccess matcher allows you to combine several matchers together:

• http://example.com/en matches site_en (match on host=example.com and URIElement(1)=en)
• http://example.com/fr matches site_fr (match on host=example.com and URIElement(1)=fr)
• http://admin.example.com matches site_admin (match on host=admin.example.com)

Compound matchers cover the legacy  host_uri matching feature.

They are based on logical combinations, or/and, using logical compound matchers:

• Compound\LogicalAnd
• Compound\LogicalOr

Each compound matcher will specify two or more sub-matchers. A rule will match if all the matchers, combined with the logical matcher, are positive. The example above would have used Map\Host and Map\Uri., combined with a LogicalAnd. When both the URI and host match, the siteaccess configured with "match" is used.

Matching by request header

It is possible to define which siteaccess to use by setting an X-Siteaccess header in your request. This can be useful for REST requests.

In such case, X-Siteaccess must be the siteaccess name (e.g. ezdemo_site).

Matching by environment variable

It is also possible to define which siteaccess to use directly via an EZPUBLISH_SITEACCESS environment variable.

This is recommended if you want to get performance gain since no matching logic is done in this case.

You can define this environment variable directly from your web server configuration:

URILexer and semanticPathinfo

In some cases, after matching a siteaccess, it is neecessary to modify the original request URI. This is for example needed with URI-based matchers since the siteaccess is contained in the original URI and it is not part of the route itself.

The problem is addressed by analyzing this URI and by modifying it when needed through the URILexer interface.

Once modified, the URI is stored in the semanticPathinfo request attribute, and the original pathinfo is not modified.

Usage

Cross-siteacess links

When using the multisite feature, it is sometimes useful to be able to generate cross-links between the different sites.
This allows you to link different resources referenced in the same content repository, but configured independently with different tree roots.

Troubleshooting

• The first matcher succeeding always wins, so be careful when using catch-all matchers like URIElement.
• If passed siteaccess name is not a valid one, an InvalidArgumentException will be thrown.
• If matcher used to match the provided siteaccess doesn't implement VersatileMatcher, the link will be generated for the current siteaccess.
• When using Compound\LogicalAnd, all inner matchers must match. If at least one matcher doesn't implement VersatileMatcher, it will fail.
• When using Compound\LogicalOr, the first inner matcher succeeding will win.

Under the hood

To implement this feature, a new VersatileMatcher was added to allow siteaccess matchers to be able to reverse-match.
All existing matchers implement this new interface, except the Regexp based matchers which have been deprecated.

The siteaccess router has been added a matchByName() method to reflect this addition. Abstract URLGenerator and DefaultRouter have been updated as well.

Dynamic Settings Injection

Before 5.4, if you wanted to implement a service needing siteaccess-aware settings (e.g. language settings), you needed to inject the whole ConfigResolver (ezpublish.config.resolver) and get the needed settings from it. This was neither very convenient nor explicit.

The goal of this feature is to allow developers to inject these dynamic settings explicitly from their service definition (yml, xml, annotation, etc.).

Syntax

Static container parameters follow the %<parameter_name>% syntax in Symfony.

Dynamic parameters have the following: $<parameter_name>[; <namespace>[; <scope>]]$, default namespace being ezsettings, and default scope being the current siteaccess.

DynamicSettingParser

This feature also introduces a DynamicSettingParser service that can be used for adding support of the dynamic settings syntax.
This service has ezpublish.config.dynamic_setting.parser for ID and implements eZ\Bundle\EzPublishCoreBundle\DependencyInjection\Configuration\SiteAccessAware\DynamicSettingParserInterface.

Limitations

A few limitations still remain:

• It is not possible to use dynamic settings in your semantic configuration (e.g. config.yml or ezplatform.yml) as they are meant primarily for parameter injection in services.
• It is not possible to define an array of options having dynamic settings. They will not be parsed. Workaround is to use separate arguments/setters.
• Injecting dynamic settings in request listeners is not recommended, as it won't be resolved with the correct scope (request listeners are instantiated before SiteAccess match). Workaround is to inject the ConfigResolver instead, and resolving the setting in your onKernelRequest method (or equivalent).

Examples

Injecting an eZ parameter

Defining a simple service needing languages parameter (i.e. prioritized languages).

Before 5.4

After, with setter injection (preferred)