Madproject

A client recently wanted 2 domains resolving to the same Magento instance. This is typically discouraged due to SEO concerns of duplicate data/information but I digress.

Depending on your DNS management, you’d probably “park” the 2nd domain over the primary domain… done and dusted.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple with Magento due to its robust multi-site and URL rewriting system. Magento has multiple scope/layers that allow you fine grain control over what you want to share between site/store instances. You can read more about that here: Overview: How Multiple Websites & Stores Work

In our case, the client wanted both domains to resolve to the same site (same template, same products, same everything). This was performed in Magento 1.6.2 on a standard LAMP setup.

1. Create a new store
   1. System->Manage Stores
   2. Create Store
   3. Fill in the store fields, taking care that the Website and Root Category are the same as your primary site.store

      

   4. Save Store
   5. Create Store View
   6. Fill in the store view fields, change Store to the new store you just created, give your store view a Name (spaces ok), a code (must be all lower case with no spaces) and make sure it’s enabled.

      

   7. Save Store View
   8. System->Index Management->Select All & Reindex Data
   9. Your new store which will be share everything with your primary store is now created
   10. Note your Store View Code as you’ll need it later
2. Tell Magento where to look – part 1
   1. System->Configuration->Web
   2. Change the scope on the upper left to your newly created store view
   3. Change Unsecure->Base URL to your second domain (You’ll have to uncheck Use Website)
   4. Change Secure->Base URL to your second domain (You’ll have to uncheck Use Website)
   5. Save Config
3. Tell Magento where to look – part 2
   1. Using your favourite IDE, open the .htaccess at the root of your Magento install
   2. Add the following, obviously changing the values with your own:

      SetEnvIf Host www\.mysecondarydomain\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=yoursecondarystoreviewcode
      SetEnvIf Host ^mysecondarydomain\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=yoursecondarystoreviewcode
      

4. Finishing up
   1. Clear the cache for good measure: System->Cache Management->Flush Magento Cache
   2. You may need to change the scope of your CMS pages to show on all sites and now just your primary site/store: CMS->Pages->Update the Store View to All Store Views or individually select the applicable stores.

I recently needed to debug some Magento code from both the command line and stuff executed by cron. Inserting Mage::log() here and there wasn’t exactly efficient or satisfying.

I’ve always used XDebug with PHPStorm (which I use solely for debugging) but all code was always executed within the browser.

Long story short, if you want to debug code in the CLI or executed by cron there are a few extra steps you need to take.

Note that many of these settings are system/config dependent but there’s still a pretty good chance this will work for you. For reference, my dev setup is a CentOS x64 6.4 LAMP config running in Virtual Box and managed by Vagrant.

php.ini

zend_extension="/usr/lib64/php/modules/xdebug.so"
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.idekey = "PHPSTORM"
xdebug.remote_host=x.x.x.x

• Replace x.x.x.x with your physical machine IP
• Replace PHPSTORM with your IDE key (PHPSTORM by default)

CLI

$ PHP_IDE_CONFIG="serverName=mysite.dev" XDEBUG_CONFIG="remote_host=x.x.x.x idekey=PHPSTORM" php script.php

• Replace mysite.dev with the PHP->Servers->Name in PHPStorm
• Replace x.x.x.x with your physical machine IP

CLI Alias
Save yourself some keystrokes by aliasing the command. Add the following to your global bashrc which is typically in /etc/bashrc:

alias phpdebug='PHP_IDE_CONFIG="serverName=mysite.dev" XDEBUG_CONFIG="remote_host=x.x.x.x idekey=PHPSTORM" /usr/bin/php

You can now debug in the CLI using:

phpdebug script.php

crontab

SHELL="/bin/bash"
PHP_IDE_CONFIG="serverName=mysite.dev"
XDEBUG_CONFIG="remote_host=x.x.x.x idekey=PHPSTORM"
* * * * * /usr/bin/php -f /vagrant/cron.php

• Replace mysite.dev with the PHP->Servers->Name in PHPStorm
• Replace x.x.x.x with your physical machine IP
• Replace PHPSTORM with your IDE key (PHPSTORM by default)

Couple of notes

• You’ll want to make sure PHPStorm is configured with Xdebug
• Make sure PHPStorm is listening for XDebug by clicking the phone icon in the PHPStorm toolbar
• Comment out the PHP_IDE_CONFIG and XDEBUG_CONFIG in crontab when not debugging
• PHPStorm may debug every request even if there’s no break point. To fix this: Preferences->PHP->Debug and uncheck Force break at the first line when no path mapping specified

In order to install a Magento extension, the first step is usually to add the required files and folders to your current Magento installation. This can be a real pain on a Mac since its merge utility is rudimentary at best.

This is where rsync (which is available from the command line) comes in handy.

Common options
-a archive mode
-r recursive
-v verbose

Option 1
Merge all files and folders from source to destination (will overwrite files, not folders, in destination if source file exist with the same name under the same path)

rsync -arv SOURCE_DIR DEST_DIR

Option 2
Merge all files and folders from source to destination with the following rules:

• Do not overwrite files which already exist
• Skip destination files that are newer than the source

rsync -arvu SOURCE_DIR DEST_DIR --ignore-existing

NOTE: Whilst this specifically resolves the probem, I’d suggest setting up a virtual environment for your development using a combination of VirtualBox and Vagrant.

Ever try to setup Magento in a local dev. environment on your Mac? You might have encountered an error message: PHP extension “mcrypt” must be loaded

Well we better load it then! This solution here worked perfectly for me: http://michaelgracie.com/2011/07/21/plugging-mcrypt-into-php-on-mac-os-x-lion-10-7