Extra services
The ready-made services around your sites: Solr search, the Adminer database browser, outbound mail, New Relic monitoring, and the system print/PDF binaries.
Around your sites, every BOA server runs a set of ready-made services you can point a site at when a real task calls for one. Nothing in this topic is something you have to set up before your sites work — and the server side of every service here is already installed and maintained for you: the Solr search server (if your plan includes it) is running, the database browser (Adminer) is served over HTTPS, and the mail system (Postfix) is configured to carry your sites' outgoing mail. Your part is always small and always in your own world — a setting in an INI file, a login in your browser, or a module in your codebase.
- Search (Solr) for your site — give a site a proper Solr-powered search backend instead of Drupal's built-in one. The search module in your codebase is yours to install; one INI line then makes BOA create and manage the site's Solr core for you.
- Browsing your database (Adminer) — look directly at a site's tables in your browser, logged in with that site's own database credentials, so each login only ever sees one site's data.
- Sending mail from your site — how the mail your sites send actually leaves the server, which parts live inside Drupal and are yours, and the checklist to follow when a message doesn't arrive.
- New Relic monitoring — point your sites at a full application-performance dashboard when the built-in logs aren't enough.
- Print & PDF tools — the system
wkhtmltopdfandpdftkbinaries that print/PDF modules shell out to, already installed at their standard paths.
When it's not yours to do
A hosted account is deliberately kept away from the machine itself, so a few things in this topic are your host's to handle. When you hit one, don't go looking for a workaround from your shell — a single support request is the right move:
- installing or resizing the Solr server, or adding a Solr core config
file you can't generate yourself (the custom
schema.xml/solrconfig.xmlroute); - getting your address onto the database-browser allow-list so Adminer will open for you;
- anything in the mail delivery path — a blocked outgoing port, a mail relay, or SPF/DKIM/DMARC records that live in DNS you don't control.
In each case the fix is quick on their side; you just need to ask. Which of
your files to edit for the INI settings mentioned in this topic is explained
in Which file do I edit?, and the
full solr_* and newrelic_* reference is on
INI settings.
Search (Solr) for your site
Give a site its own private Solr core: set one line in the site INI, add the matching Drupal search module, and BOA builds, wires up, and later removes the core.
Browsing your database (Adminer)
Open the built-in Adminer database browser over HTTPS, log in with a site's own credentials from its drushrc.php, and browse, query or export tables safely.
Sending mail from your site
Everyday transactional mail just works, bulk newsletters belong at an email service, and an optional SMTP module improves delivery, plus what to check when mail is missing.
New Relic monitoring for your sites
Point your sites at New Relic APM with two small switches — the license-key control file and the per-site INI setting — and each site reports as its own application.
Print & PDF tools (wkhtmltopdf and pdftk)
The system wkhtmltopdf, wkhtmltoimage and pdftk binaries are preinstalled on every BOA server — point your print/PDF modules at the system paths instead of uploading your own builds.