Development environment

Set up environment for Drupal development on various operating systems.

Select your operating system from below, and follow the instructions to setup your development environment and prepare to install the City of Boston Drupal 8 website.

All Environments

1. Generate and register ssh key with GitHub

Tip

You can (re)use an existing key on your development computer, so long as it meets the requirements of GitHub.

How to create SSH keys for github

Be sure you load the public keys you create into GitHub.

2. Register ssh key with Acquia

Tip

You can (re)use an existing key on your development computer, so long as it meets the requirements of Acquia.

Linux

City of Boston recommend the Ubuntu 16.04 or later distribution. While other Linux distributions will operate well, the instructions below assume the use of Ubuntu and, in particular, the apt package manager.

3. Install Git

apt-get update
apt-get install git

4. Install Docker

apt-get update
apt-get install docker

Check Docker pre-requisites.

sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.22.0/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose    
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

If using PHPStorm, install Docker-machine

base=https://github.com/docker/machine/releases/download/v0.14.0 &&
curl -L $base/docker-machine-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) >/tmp/docker-machine &&
sudo install /tmp/docker-machine /usr/local/bin/docker-machine

5. Install Lando

apt-get update
apt-get install lando

MacOS

Mac/OSX

At their core, Mac operating systems are similar to Linux and therefore the same basic steps apply to Macs as they do for Linux.

3. Install Git

Git is usually installed, and on most operating systems verifying is achieved by typing the command below at a terminal prompt. This process has the advantage of prompting to install git if its not there.

git --version

4. Install Lando

Enter the command below. This will install a brew-community version of Lando, including docker as explained here.

brew cask install lando

Using brew is quick and simple and will definitely get you started. If you later find that you have issues with Lando and/or Docker versions, then follow the instructions on this page under the title "Install DMG via direct download" to get the latest versions.

Windows

Windows

Because Drupal is most commonly installed on Linux servers, City of Boston DoIT does not recommend using Windows® as a developer machine due to the increased difficulty in emulating the most common Drupal production web server.

However, if you have no alternative, or harbor an unquenchable desire to use Windows® then the following best practices and instructions should get you headed in the right direction.

Using Windows

All Environments

Install IDE and configure debugger [optional].

There are many IDE's capable of being used to write, verify and deploy PHP code. City of Boston do not endorse any particular platform, but have successfully used the following:

• Notepad++ (basic text editor)
• Sublime Text (improved text editor)
• VIM (Linux-based advanced text editor)

• Visual Studio Code (full IDE)
• Eclipse (full IDE)

• PHPStorm (full IDE)