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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

Important

Configuration is tightly related to the service container.
To fully understand the following content, you need to be familiar with Symfony's service container and its configuration.

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.

eZ Platform core configuration is prefixed by ezsettings namespace, while internal configuration (not to be used directly) is prefixed by ezpublish namespace.

For configuration that is meant to be exposed to an end-user (or end-developer), it's usually a good idea to also implement semantic configuration.

Note that it is also possible to implement SiteAccess aware semantic configuration.

Example

Configuration
Usage from a controller

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.).

Always prefer semantic configuration especially for internal eZ settings.
Manually editing internal eZ settings is possible, but at your own risk, as unexpected behavior can occur.

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.

The following configuration is an example of internal usage inside the code of eZ Platform.
Namespace + scope example

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

Instead of injecting the whole ConfigResolver service, you may directly inject your SiteAccess-aware settings (aka dynamic settings) into your own 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.

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

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.

A siteaccess can be part of several groups.

A siteaccess configuration has always precedence on the group configuration.

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)

Every custom matcher can be specified with a fully qualified class name (e.g. \My\SiteAccess\Matcher) or by a service identifier prefixed by @ (e.g. @my_matcher_service).

  • In the case of a fully qualified class name, the matching configuration will be passed in the constructor.
  • In the case of a service, it must implement eZ\Bundle\EzPublishCoreBundle\SiteAccess\Matcher. The matching configuration will be passed to setMatchingConfiguration().

Make sure to type the matcher in correct case. If it is in wrong case like "Uri" instead of "URI," it will happily work on systems like Mac OS X because of case insensitive file system, but will fail when you deploy it to aLlinux server. This is a known artifact of PSR-0 autoloading of PHP classes.

Available matchers

NameDescriptionConfigurationExample
URIElementMaps a URI element to a siteaccess.
This is the default matcher used when choosing
URI matching in setup wizard. 

The element number you want to match (starting from 1).

Important: When using a value > 1, it will concatenate the elements with _

URI: /ezdemo_site/foo/bar

Element number: 1
Matched siteaccess: ezdemo_site

Element number: 2
Matched siteaccess: ezdemo_site_foo

URITextMatches URI using pre and/or post sub-strings
in the first URI segment

The prefix and/or suffix (none are required)

URI: /footestbar/my/content

Prefix: foo
Suffix: bar
Matched siteaccess: test 

HostElementMaps an element in the host name to a siteaccess.

The element number you want to match (starting from 1).

Host name: www.example.com

Element number: 2
Matched siteaccess: example 

HostTextMatches a siteaccess in the host name,
using pre and/or post sub-strings.

The prefix and/or suffix (none are required)

Host name: www.foo.com

Prefix: www.
Suffix: .com
Matched siteaccess: foo 

Map\HostMaps a host name to a siteaccess.

A hash map of host/siteaccess

In eZ Enterprise, when using the Map\Host matcher, you need to provide the following line in your Twig template (e.g. in the head of the main template file):

{{ multidomain_access() }}

Map:

Host name: www.example.com

Matched siteaccess: foo_front

Map\URIMaps a URI to a siteaccess

A hash map of URI/siteaccess

URI: /something/my/content

Map:

  • something => ezdemo_site
  • foobar => ezdemo_site_admin

Matched siteaccess: ezdemo_site

Map\PortMaps a port to a siteaccess

A has map of Port/siteaccess

URL: http://ezpublish.dev:8080/my/content

Map:

  • 80: foo
  • 8080: bar

Matched siteaccess: bar

Regex\HostMatches against a regexp and extracts a portion of it

The regexp to match against
and the captured element to use

Host name: example_sa

regex: ^(\\w+)_sa$
itemNumber: 1

Matched siteaccess: example

Regex\URIMatches against a regexp and extracts a portion of it

The regexp to match against
and the captured element to use


URI: /footestbar/something

regex: ^/foo(\\w+)bar
itemNumber: 1

Matched siteaccess: test 

Compound siteaccess matcher

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

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.

ezplatform.yml

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:

Apache VirtualHost example

This can also be done via PHP-FPM configuration file, if you use it. See  PHP-FPM documentation  for more information.

Note about precedence

 The precedence order for siteaccess matching is the following (the first matched wins):

  1. Request header
  2. Environment variable
  3. Configured matchers

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.

URILexer interface

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

Usage

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.

Twig example
See ez_urlalias documentation page, for more information about linking to a Location
PHP example
 

Important

As siteaccess matchers can involve hosts and ports, it is highly recommended to generate cross-siteaccess links in an absolute form (e.g. using url() Twig helper).

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.

Note

Siteaccess router public methods have also been extracted to a new interface, SiteAccessRouterInterface.

Landing Page - Known limitation

In eZ Studio's Landing Page you can encounter a 404 error when clicking a relative link which points to a different siteaccess (if the Content item being previewed does not exist in the previously used siteaccess). This is because detecting siteaccesses when navigating in preview is not functional yet. This is a known limitation that is awaiting resolution.

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.

For more information, see ConfigResolver documentation.

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.ymlas 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).

Note

Internally, languages parameter is defined as ezsettings.<siteaccess_name>.languages, ezsettings being eZ internal namespace.

Before 5.4


After, with setter injection (preferred)

 

 

Important: Ensure you always add null as a default value, especially if the argument is type-hinted.

After, with constructor injection

 

 

Tip

Setter injection for dynamic settings should always be preferred, as it makes it possible to update your services that depend on them when ConfigResolver is updating its scope (e.g. when previewing content in a given SiteAccess). However, only one dynamic setting should be injected by setter .

Constructor injection will make your service be reset in that case.

Injecting 3rd party parameters

 

In this topic:

Related topics:

Cross-siteaccess links

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