How to Download Drush Aliases from Acquia Cloud
If you are a Drupal developer or site builder who uses Acquia Cloud as your hosting platform, you might want to know how to download drush aliases from Acquia Cloud. Drush aliases are shortcuts that allow you to run drush commands on your remote Acquia Cloud environments without having to specify the full connection details every time. In this article, we will explain what drush aliases are, why you need them, how to download them from Acquia Cloud, and how to use them with Acquia Cloud.
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What are Drush Aliases and Why You Need Them
Drush Aliases Explained
Drush is a command-line tool that lets you perform various tasks on your Drupal sites, such as clearing cache, updating modules, syncing databases, and more. Drush can work with both local and remote Drupal sites, but for remote sites, you need to provide the SSH connection details, such as the hostname, username, password, and port. This can be tedious and error-prone, especially if you have multiple remote environments for different sites.
That's where drush aliases come in handy. A drush alias is a short name that refers to a remote Drupal site and its connection details. For example, instead of typing something like this:
drush @user@example.com:2222:/var/www/html/example.prod status
You can type something like this:
drush @example.prod status
The alias @example.prod contains all the information that drush needs to connect to the remote site. You can define multiple aliases for different environments, such as @example.dev, @example.test, and @example.prod. You can also use aliases for local sites, such as @self.
Benefits of Using Drush Aliases
Using drush aliases has several benefits, such as:
Saving time and keystrokes by typing shorter commands
Avoiding mistakes and typos by using predefined connection details
Making your commands more readable and consistent
Sharing aliases with your team members for easier collaboration
Integrating with other tools and scripts that support drush aliases
How to Download Drush Aliases from Acquia Cloud
Prerequisites
To download drush aliases from Acquia Cloud, you need the following:
An Acquia Cloud account and an application hosted on Acquia Cloud
A local machine with drush installed (version 8 or higher)
An SSH key pair that allows you to access your Acquia Cloud environments (see for instructions)
Steps to Download Drush Aliases
To download drush aliases from Acquia Cloud, follow these steps:
Sign in to your
Navigate to your application and click on the Drush aliases tab
Click on the Download button and save the zip file to your local machine
Extract the zip file to a folder of your choice (for example, /.drush)
Open the README.txt file in the folder and follow the instructions to rename and move the alias files to the appropriate location (for example, /.drush/sites)
Clear the drush cache by running drush cc drush
Verify that your aliases are working by running drush sa. You should see a list of aliases for your Acquia Cloud environments
How to Use Drush Aliases with Acquia Cloud
Examples of Common Drush Commands with Aliases
Once you have downloaded and configured your drush aliases, you can use them to run drush commands on your Acquia Cloud environments. Here are some examples of common drush commands with aliases:
Command
Description
drush @example.prod status
Shows the status of the Drupal site on the production environment of the example application
drush @example.test sql-sync @example.dev @self
Copies the database from the test environment of the example application to the local machine
drush @example.dev rsync @self:%files @example.dev:%files
Copies the files directory from the local machine to the development environment of the example application
drush @example.prod uli admin
Generates a one-time login link for the admin user on the production environment of the example application
drush @example.test pm-update --security-only --no-core --dry-run
Shows a list of security updates for modules on the test environment of the example application without applying them
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You can use wildcards to run drush commands on multiple environments at once. For example, drush @example.* cc all will clear the cache on all environments of the example application.
You can use site lists to define groups of aliases that you frequently use together. For example, you can create a file called sites/example.site.yml with the following content:
site-list: - @example.dev - @example.test - @example.prod
Then you can run drush commands on all environments of the example application by using @sites.example.
You can use shell aliases to create shortcuts for common drush commands with aliases. For example, you can add the following line to your .bashrc or .zshrc file:
alias dsa='drush sa'
Then you can type dsa instead of drush sa.
You can use interactive mode to run multiple drush commands with aliases in a single session. To enter interactive mode, type drush core-cli --alias-path=/.drush/sites/ --uri=example.com --root=/var/www/html/example.prod/docroot/ --remote-host=user@example.com --remote-user=user --ssh-options="-p 2222". Then you can type any drush command without specifying the alias or connection details.
You can use bash completion to autocomplete drush commands and aliases. To enable bash completion, follow .
You can use drush shell aliases to run non-drush commands on your remote environments. For example, you can add the following line to your sites/example.site.yml file:
$aliases['prod']['shell-aliases']['ls'] = 'ls -la';
Then you can type drush @example.prod ls to list the files on the production environment of the example application.
You can use drush policy files to enforce rules and restrictions on your drush commands with aliases. For example, you can create a file called sites/policy.drush.inc with the following content:
<?php function drush_policy_sql_sync_validate($source = NULL, $destination = NULL) if ($destination == '@example.prod') return drush_set_error(dt('You are not allowed to overwrite the production database.'));
This will prevent you from accidentally overwriting the production database with another database.
You can use drush hooks to customize and extend your drush commands with aliases. For example, you can create a file called sites/example.drush.inc with the following content:
<?php function drush_example_post_pm_updatecode() drush_log(dt('Running post-update tasks for the example application.'), 'ok'); drush_invoke_process('@self', 'cc', array('all')); drush_invoke_process('@self', 'updb'); drush_invoke_process('@self', 'fra'); drush_invoke_process('@self', 'cron');
This will run a series of tasks after updating the code on the example application.
Conclusion
Drush aliases are a powerful and convenient way to manage your Drupal sites on Acquia Cloud. They allow you to run drush commands on your remote environments with ease and efficiency. They also enable you to integrate with other tools and scripts, customize and extend your drush commands, and enforce rules and restrictions on your drush commands. By downloading and using drush aliases from Acquia Cloud, you can save time, avoid errors, and improve your workflow.
FAQs
What is Acquia Cloud?
Acquia Cloud is a cloud-based hosting platform for Drupal sites. It provides a secure, scalable, and reliable environment for your Drupal applications. It also offers features such as automated backups, performance monitoring, code deployment, and more.
How do I install drush?
You can install drush using Composer, the PHP dependency manager. To install the latest stable version of drush, run composer global require drush/drush. To install a specific version of drush, run composer global require drush/drush:8.x, where x is the minor version number.
How do I update my drush aliases?
If you make any changes to your Acquia Cloud environments, such as adding or removing environments, changing domain names, or changing SSH keys, you need to update your drush aliases to reflect those changes. To update your drush aliases, simply download them again from Acquia Cloud and replace the old ones with the new ones.
How do I troubleshoot my drush aliases?
If you encounter any problems with your drush aliases, such as connection errors, permission errors, or command errors, you can try the following steps:
Check that your SSH key pair is valid and matches the one in your Acquia Cloud account
Check that your alias files are in the correct location and have the correct permissions
Check that your alias definitions are correct and match the information in your Acquia Cloud account
Clear the drush cache by running drush cc drush
Run your drush commands with the --debug or --verbose options to see more details about what is happening
Consult the for more help
Where can I learn more about drush?
You can learn more about drush by visiting the following resources:
The , which contains guides, references, examples, and tutorials on how to use drush
The , which contains the source code, issues, pull requests, and releases of drush
The , which contains information about the project history, maintainers, contributors, and license of drush
The , which contains video lessons on how to install, configure, and use drush
The , which contains questions and answers from the Drupal community about drush
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