An introduction to DDev and how extend it with a mix of techs / Web Tools / Joshua Stuart Graham

Cool. Okay, thanks everyone for coming. Um, yeah, so I apologize for the taskbar. Um, maybe we'll try and work that out next time. Uh, but uh yeah, my presentation is about the D Dev uh development tool, um, uh which is the uh the tool uh the official tool that is recommended by the Drupal community to run your um local development site. Um, and uh I thought there was like a knowledge gap um in how to use it uh in in Australia. So, I thought I should do a presentation about like uh kind of a little bit about what it is and how to how to what's good and what's bad and a few configuration kind of options. Okay, cool. Um, yeah, we'll just a short spiel about myself. Um, 10 years Drupal. Um, I do some running and stuff and I can't last the marathons, but I enthusiasm. It's great. Okay, that's that's the agenda there you can see on the screen. Um, but yeah, it's basically uh yeah, a little bit about it, pros and cons, um compared to like Lando, so like flexibility and things. Um, what you might need to worry like uh it um uh you might have like corporate policy uh restriction on your computer, so you might need to worry about uh SSL certificates. Um, and so that the container can like update to the right PHP version. Uh, and there's a few other customizations uh that you can do. Um, and a note about like performance as well. Uh there's a QR code. The QR code uh I'll update the presentation. It's the to my um GitHub. Um, you can like bookmark it and then I'll upload it uh later after this. I was just like fixing some formatting um for the presentation. So, unfortunately, it's uh it's not there yet, but it will be there. So, um hoping that this presentation is going to be kind of like a a reference guide uh for some quick uh options you might use. Okay. So, let me tell you about what local development is. So, the way So, one way to think of it is like we cannot all like work on the same thing. We cannot all work on the same car, the same paint or something. So, when you like you do your code, you know, if you break it for the website to to something, then you break it for everyone else. So, you need a local development tool. So, you have your copy of the code and you can do what you want with it and then when it's ready, you can put that new change in with everyone else's tested changes. We're sending that. So, good. Cool. Um Done. Cool. Yeah. So, comparing DDEV to to Lando and others. So, the pros and cons. DDEV uses a kind of monolithic monolithic a mono repo kind of architecture where it has multiple versions and lots of utilities included in the container. So, you download all the content like when you turn on your project and you can switch between different installed versions of PHP. So, it's a bit easier. Um but there's some gotchas when you try and deviate outside of the this kind of architecture, I guess. Like a different Apache configuration with your PHP is kind of like fiddly. But, for what it does, it's excellent. Very reliable. Um Yep. And so, one one cool thing about it is that you the traffic proxy inside it, the router, can map any port to any port inside it. You're not locked into just AC ports. So, that's kind of very nice. Um and also it's a bit more um, to me, based on my research, it's very fast. Uh, like more uh, maintain a more community uh, velocity in its development compared to to DDEV uh, to to Lando. Um Yep. Cool. Uh, bit more specifics about it. Um uh, DDEV has a kind of very um focused uh, architecture. So, one um uh, some things to note is you uh, it has when you run your project, you have like different types of projects. Um, you might uh, DDEV cannot can run not just Drupal, but also um like a WordPress uh, or like a Laravel or something like that as well. Um And so, it has a all these projects has a con- kind of defined uh, way of running. And that's like a web uh, container and a database container. And a few other things. And uh, you in the default like in in this uh the way that it runs is you cannot delete you cannot remove you cannot like override the web container, but you can modify the web container, but you cannot like remove it completely. So, you can't like take some parts of DDEV and then reuse it. You have to like kind of work with this in the uh, the rules of uh, it's opinionated architecture and then add things on top and then it works great. Uh, so, there's some notes if you're trying to run something like completely different like a Java container or something, you then that's great, but you have to have the web container as well. So, you might have to like proxy your request across. So, it's a little bit opinionated in that uh, area. Um the the way it works with the uh, configuration and the kind of uh layers to its settings. Um, in your project folder you have a DDEV uh .ddev folder in your project folder. Um and uh, compared to Lando, whereas kind of more like everything's in the YAML file in the project root, and DDEV is uh in the folder, and things are split up like layers and things. And when it runs, it will like compile them into uh kind of mono- monolithic uh files, and then it Docker will run off those. So, it's kind of like a split up um compared to Lando. Uh so, it's a bit easier for like layers, but a bit harder for the replacement. Um the uh DDEV has a strong plugin uh architecture um and community. So, it's um you can kind of have like create your own plugins, and you can version control them. Um and it seems like to me Lando's like it does have plugin system, but it's not really apparent how you can make your own version um or upgrade like like version like go to certain versions of them. Um and the plugins, I'll talk later on this, but the plugin is not just like, "Oh, we'll just add like this type of container or something." It's more like a layout, and then it applies that layout to your project. So, you got like a overlay of different files. Um and it uh uh updates as fast when the uh plugin is updated, unless this uh automatic um automatic generated line is there, then it will not update that file cuz it knows that you've manually overwritten it. So, that is kind of nice. It's kind of like best of both worlds, I guess. But you do need to track like if you don't override it, then is there some change upstream that you might need to worry about? That then that's kind of a uh a con, I guess. Um a bit more, it's got more support. DDEV has more support currently like Lando and other things. It's got more provider support. Um it's uh also has um some performance enhancements. Also has like DDEV Share. Uh Lando used to have DDEV Share, but the provider that used uh it uh they stopped doing that. Um but DDEV uh uses a different provider, DDEV Share. So, that's where you can Maybe you're showing your local website uh to someone and they have a mobile phone and instead of like trying to work out how to host file like DNS overrides on their phone, you just DDEV Share. It will uh show your local website um on the internet through a tunnel, so some specialized like unique domain, and then you can share your website. So, it's very useful uh for that. Um it's got a few uh like plugins for like text editors and things. So, DDEV has more like support in that area. Um it's also got a nice feature of database uh snapshots, so you can take like a binary backup of your uh database when you're like doing migrations rather than like dumping the SQL file importing it. It can take like a long time. So, it's got a few like extra features and stuff. It's kind of nice. Um I will I promise I'm going to get into the uh more generalized uh options, just a bit overview of the context of the architecture. Um so, this is the monolithic kind of containers that are out of the box. Um they're version controlled like the tags, the Docker tags. Just FYI, this you know, web server version, whatever. Uh this is the folder structure of the dot DDEV folder. Uh you can read on the screen, but essentially um you got the config uh YAML files. Um note that's YAML, not YML. Uh and you got the main file, and then there's the wildcards ones you can use a config.whatever.yml and it'll merge in together. Um and there's a few different folders where you can place uh different things in, and then there's the build versions of those folders. So, you got like uh web I don't think it's going to be there. But anyway, DB build uh is like you put your uh Dockerfile for your database build. So, DDEV has its own Dockerfile, and you can put like your like a one liner, like add this program to the DDEV build folder and then when you run your project, it copies that line in the DDEV in the doc file in the DDEV build folder to another um folder called dot DDEV which build dot dot which build yeah, so it combines that all together and that's actually what's run like underneath. Um so some of them are like run time folders and some are like your configuration folders. Um most of them have like generated uh line um and you can read that line if you want to edit anything and then subsequent updates will not update that file. So it's kind of like a layered architecture. So looking good. Cool. Um One neat thing about DDEV um compared to Lando is you has two options for the configuration files. Uh you can So by default it will like merge them together like array like a nested array merge. Um but it also has this uh line. Um you can add called config override true and then it will replace instead of adding them together. So it's quite nice if you're got like uh uh maybe like follow follow volumes and you don't want the top uh like the previous volumes to be combined with your volumes, you just want to override what they are. So that's more flexible in that area. Um so yes, going back to the basics um so yeah, just to start a project, I think you might have done a first timers um session, but yeah, uh to to run DDEV so after you install it there's a like a um it's very easy, there's a few different ways to install it, so I'm not going to go over that. Um the yeah, you just create your folder, then you run the DDEV config command with your project type and your document root. Um by default it will take up the folder name as the project name, but you can override that. If you're running like multiple projects of the same name for some reason in different like two folders in the same name in different parent folders, then you might want to use the project name. But that's that's what that is. If you're like, "Oh, where's the project name?" Cool. And then you run start and then it spins up all the containers. Uh and then yeah, it uh there's a .ddev folder. Um bunch of things are committed. I think it's in a different slide, but essentially um Oh, sorry. There's a bunch of things that are ignored, but the basic files just commit the config file when you're sharing the project. Uh Yep. Cool. Um so there's some basic things with like PHP and database version. Um you just like do dash dash PHP version equals blah blah blah. Um Uh and you can also have the configuration change like the PHP any like the max execution execution time. Um and that's placed in the .ddev uh PHP any /whatever.ini and it will pick it up. And you can also it uh places it inside the uh like add-ons folder in the container. So you can also use it to replace uh things on purpose that are come like out of box in the containers. So that was PHP. This is uh the uh database. The database has a You can change the type like uh MySQL or PostgreSQL or something. Um so that uses slightly different uh parameter. Um similar type of thing you can also do like mysql.cnf. I'm not sure about Postgres Postgres, but um yeah, the MariaDB and MySQL use that folder for the configuration files. Uh oh, and it's uh it also supports other ones like uh Microsoft SQL through uh official plugins. Um yeah, one thing that did surprise me is DDEV comes out of the box with Node.js engine um in the same monolithic uh web container. So, it's kind of good, I guess. Um like you don't need to have separate container. Uh it's um has a few different ways of saying like the version. Um but the most easiest is just like dash dash Node.js version whatever. And then um after you do this, you do like DDEV restart. And it will like apply the configuration. Uh these are all the different commands. I'm not going to go over um them all. Um but essentially the biggest ones are the the start um DDEV start. So, like such project. Uh stop is like, you know, when you finish or you want to like not have many like resources used on your computer. Um and restart is um not like Lando restart. Actually, it will um it turns off your containers, gets the Dockerfile cache, re-applies your custom customizations on top, and then um starts the like turns on the containers again. So, it's like delete the container and then apply configuration and turn it on again. So, a little bit different. Not really like all the volumes are kind of shared, so you won't lose your data, but it is something to note um if you're like just edit some like system file in the container and you thought uh your change would be tracked, but no, actually it'll be deleted. Um Yeah, you'll have to use raw Docker Compose uh commands to to uh um if you want to do a a real restart, not just a fake restart. Um thing. Um Forget Oh, and DDEV deletes a deletes a project. Um by default it takes a snapshot, so you might want to put like omit snapshot. Um otherwise, it'll turn on all your containers, take a snapshot, and then it will delete the container. So, but maybe you don't really care about the project and you don't want to back up, so just pass omit snapshot. Uh the utility ones are just for like debugging purpose, does the same as the other one, just more um verbose verbosity. Um whereas the normal Ddev restart just has like dots when it's like building the container. Like maybe so it has like certain versions in-built like PHP version. And if you do some version that's not in-built like PHP 7, it will try and download that, but you won't really see the the progress. So it's kind of nice if you're like, "Oh, why is it taking so long?" You can use the utility command. Um there's some more notes there, but uh yeah, you can see the GitHub um for the uh like when I upload it later um to read that. Um a few more things. You've got Ddev SSH, similar to Lando SSH. Um it's pretty straight forward. Um Uh yeah, it's pretty much the same. Um So for I think it was Yeah, there's no Lando update. Oh, sorry, there's Lando update, but Ddev is um uh It's a kind of like built-in, I guess. You don't update plugins like separately. Uh fine. There's the snapshots and how to do like add-ons. It's got dash dash version. We'll have a example of that later on. Cool. Okay. Um you can do custom commands. One really cool thing about this is the custom command. So that's like Ddev and then whatever command. It's like Ddev Josh or something. You can like make Josh do something. Um You can uh set the container that it runs on, which is similar to Lando, but you can also make it run on the host system. So maybe you want to affect I don't know, do something on the host. Maybe I haven't tested it, but maybe you could run some ahoy command or something or something with ping me, I guess. And then then whatever like else later on. Um but that's kind of nice and it has the uh format there on the screen. It's not highlighted, but yeah, the dot Ddev folder and then where you want to run. And if it's host uh for slash host, then it'll be the host, otherwise it'll be like the name of the container. Uh that's example of how to custom command called my bash. So you go uh ddev space my bash and then it does something. This one just echoes some of statement um and then execute the command that you pass through it. So this one just like it goes and then like I passed it past echo my parameter and it was executed as well. And you can also override. By default, this my bash is the command name, but you uh because that's the file name, but if you you can have different file name to the command if you have the usage marker. Um similarly, um if you need like certain location for your custom uh default current directory, uh unlike Lando where you have to specify in the uh YAML file, uh this one you um have to use the bash commands. All the commands are always bash. Um so yeah, you run the CD uh command with some different environmental variables available. Um and you can also set your own environmental variable just like that one on the screen. Um yep. So with your out-of-the-box containers, um like anyone select different PHP version or something, you might have to deal with like custom SSL certificate. Um so on like your working fields, we have Zscaler and um uh it scans everything, but your container does not know about the software. So it just thinks like, "Oh, something's wrong with the connection cuz there's no real authority to tell me that Zscaler there is the um trusted." So um so in order to do some customization to your uh software, um and to get it trusted, there's uh Docker files you can use to change to add the root certificate so it can get trusted. And there's the pre Dockerfile. So there's the Dockerfile.whatever and the pre Dockerfile. When in DB root or web root, um yeah, so if you put in the pre then it will put the certificate in earlier in the container. Uh and then when it downloads a new version of PHP, it will like be trusted uh right and just like erroring and then you're like, "Oh, what's going on?" Um yeah, and make sure it's PEM formatted. It's um yeah, when you're exporting from your uh computer. There's like different SSL uh formats. Uh that's this example. Create a file. File so it's just like layered like I said before. Um have your file and you put it in a certain location and run update certificates. And it'll run that when you do like the DDEV restart. Um yeah, so customizations, you can um add some additional containers to for your requirements. Uh you can also remove the default containers for some like if you maybe don't need a database, you just run like static site. Then you have this uh line in your config.yaml file. Um so that's great, makes it a bit faster. Um and there's some sort of hack, I'm not sure it's supported. Um but if you want to use the web container but you don't really like the default kind of parameters in the Docker Compose, uh you can kind of like create like layered Docker Compose override files which will merge with the original and then you can add like a this reset uh in one of the files and then the next file in alphabetical order can have the real configuration. That way it has it having to merge of the array, it will like remove the original array and then you can have your new array. So it's a complete replacement. But it's not really like great but it's option. Um yeah, uh with the web container I'll a note there that uh it uses the PHP-FPM by default, not web PHP. So, if you're trying to replicate like 100% to your um production website, it's um uh not possible unless you like yeah, have some new installation instructions or you replace the web container completely. Uh yeah, that's what the Docker Compose um wildcard looks like. So, um so the base is like a box and the full is the generated one. And you create some wildcard matching that format and then it will um yeah, be like coming to the full file when you it runs. Uh that's an example of how to run a a service. Um just need like container name, um and the the ports and environment, I think is the most key things. Oh, and volumes, yes. Container name, uh ports, environment, volumes. Um yep, so volumes is for like um shared um metadata, I think, between the containers, things like cut commands or something like that. Um yep, container name is like your name of your service. Uh and the environment is like exposing like certain ports. Um the host name is just like it helps you with your uh command prompt. Uh and those ports is just like yeah, allow some connections in. But you can change the ports to something else, so that's kind of nice. A comment there. Uh it's good. Oh yeah, you can um in Lando, it So, out of the box in Lando, the usual way is like everything shares the same domain name. Yep. Um and but have different port number. But if you like prefix your domain name for different um services, then you uh can use edit the virtual host add something in in front. So, this example is solar. So, that's how you can kind of get like Lando kind of like functionality. Cool. Um yeah, if you need to do something based on your unique name, um, like between services or something, uh, it doesn't have it out of the box, just something to note. Um, so you have to create your own like name, and that on the screen is the format to use. That matches unique name. You can add like additional programs. Um, so when I researched this, uh, like at the start, actually, I didn't realize PV is already included. That's like the progressive viewer. Um, but you can install other things. I just tried to find some random packages that aren't included. Called htop. Um, this is a config.yml file way of adding files. It will like generate into a Dockerfile. Um, but you can also, uh, do your own like a custom way. Um, like this on the screen with the Dockerfiles. Um, yep. You can also use, uh, extra hook. So when it runs, it will run some extra command. Um, this is good if you're if it's not dependent on the internet because it's not cached. With the Dockerfile. Um, but it's another way of running like something locally. You can actually Uh, database import, um, it's pretty good, actually. It's very performant already, the database import. Um, you can do some small optimization. I just did some small thing with the, uh, piping um, directly without using the command, and got like three per- uh, three second increase. So it's around like a 5% I guess. Not really that like very, um, not very advantageous, but it is a note that you can increase it a little bit. I think compared to like Drush, it's like quite excellent. Um, but yeah, that's a that's how you like pipe it directly if you want to bypass all the sanitization checks and things. Um, this is how to add-ons. You do the add-on get, and then the thing there's a registry uh, website on the screen. Um, yeah, you remove the marker if you want to edit some files for the plugin. Uh, that's how to install a solid six example. I need to wrap up. Um Uh but yeah, you just like you get the add-on, you restart, and then you just turn on the Drupal modules, configure it. Um and then uh yeah, it's it's ready. That's how I change the global port number if you need to if you're running like multiple project like routers on your computer. Uh note about um yeah, it's very quick about Mutagen. So it has built-in uh thing called Mutagen. Basically, uh create some volume, which is kind of like your real project in the container, but it's not directly access your real files. So it's a kind of a copy edit the copy of the files, and then it will synchronize the files like later. So you can have native performance, and then your host will like catch up later. 2 to 10 times more performance. So it's kind of cool. Uh that's just some notes on the screen about like if you need to configure it like explicitly, otherwise it just kind of works out of the box. If you have um so Mutagen's for like the traditional Windows, not the WSL, or Mac. Uh for Linux and WSL it's not uh required. But it just runs in the background. About that's commands. Um you can do extra files. I won't go over this, but you can also map files. You just have to note configuration to make Mutagen not complain. Uh I think that's it. Yeah, and that's it. Um Thanks for my uh Uh yeah, listening to my presentation. Um yeah, it'll uh the presentation will go up on the GitHub. Um But uh yeah, any quick questions? Um feel free. Any questions? No? >> Uh so yeah, so I think uh DDEV is pretty powerful, would you say? Um so my question first question, what's the challenge between you using DDEV working with another uh architecture such as uh Vagrant? How manage to get what's what's the benefits you get from local embassy package or something like that? That's my question. >> Yeah, so DDEV is more more reliable. So the question sorry, the question is about like using another local development tool, how does it compare to DDEV? So yeah, DDEV is more reliable. It has lots of tests, runs on like Windows and Mac and and and links for everything. Has a mutagen built in. But compared to traditional like those different tools, those tools are more flexible. You got more options. It's not like fixed. So like example is like the mutagen is like only does the root directory. If your for some reason your project, you may have lots of repos. Maybe you want like this other folder to be that's outside DDEV folder to be the main project folder. You cannot do that. It's like hard coded. So some things you cannot really do. Some things you can override but some things you cannot do. So yeah, for the other tools, it's good if you need that flexibility but if you don't need it, then using DDEV is is better because it's more reliable and easier to