Site administration: course overview
This course is for the people who run an Exponential site day to day: they create accounts and decide who may do what, keep the settings, caches and cronjobs in order, read the logs and the audit trail when something goes wrong, keep the site secure, back it up and upgrade it. It is taught in the administration (design admin4) and on the command line of each learner's own training installation.
Who it is for
- Site and intranet administrators.
- Webmasters and team leads who take over a site from an agency.
- Hosting support staff, as the first half of their path before Hosting and operations.
Outcome: after the course, a learner can run an Exponential site on their own: manage users, roles and sections, find and change a setting, clear the right cache, keep cronjobs and workflows running, investigate a problem with the logs and the audit trail, apply the security settings, back up and restore the site, and plan and check an upgrade.
Format and duration
| Duration | 48 lessons, about 30 hours of lessons (five days with breaks) |
| Format | Classroom or online; hands-on in the browser and on a terminal |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Prerequisites | Editors 101 (or the same experience as an editor); basic command line |
| Lab | One training installation per learner, installed with php bin/php/console exp:install --apply (see Installing from the command line) and served with exp:velocity start; the learner needs the administrator account of their own installation and a terminal on its machine |
Modules
| Module | Lessons | Duration | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Getting oriented as a site administrator | 5 | 2 h 55 min | Knows the job, the Setup area, System information, the settings page and exp:ini |
| 2. Users and groups | 5 | 3 h 10 min | Creates and manages accounts, resets passwords, checks accounts, changes owners |
| 3. Roles and policies | 5 | 3 h 15 min | Builds, assigns and tests roles; controls anonymous access and registration |
| 4. Sections, siteaccesses and object states | 4 | 2 h 50 min | Uses sections and object states, reads siteaccesses, manages content languages |
| 5. Caches | 5 | 2 h 55 min | Names and clears the right cache in the administration and on the command line, preloads caches |
| 6. Cronjobs, workflows and notifications | 5 | 3 h 30 min | Runs and schedules cronjobs, builds an approval workflow, runs notifications safely |
| 7. Logs and the audit trail | 5 | 3 h 15 min | Reads the logs and the log viewer, follows an error reference, investigates with the audit trail |
| 8. Security | 5 | 3 h 20 min | Hardens a site, sets sign-in policy and two-step sign-in, sessions and a Content Security Policy |
| 9. Backups and maintenance | 4 | 2 h 55 min | Backs up and restores a site, uses maintenance mode, checks files and storage |
| 10. Upgrades, extensions and packages | 5 | 3 h 20 min | Plans and checks an upgrade, uses ezupdate and git_manager, the Extensions page and packages |
Reading path
For a trainer preparing to give this course, in this order:
- Trainers: start here and the Course catalogue.
- The administration tour and Operating a site.
- Installing from the command line and After installing: the lab.
- The settings page, System information and The exp:ini command.
- Roles, policies and unactivated users and Sections.
- Caches and Cronjobs.
- The log viewer and The audit trail.
- Security hardening, Two-factor login and Content Security Policy.
- Maintenance mode and Upgrading.
- Modules 1 to 10 of this course, in order. Rehearse every exercise on an installation made exactly like the learners'; several exercises change settings or restore the site, and each lesson says how to set it back.
Suggested schedules
| Schedule | Plan |
|---|---|
| Five days | Day 1: Modules 1 and 2. Day 2: Modules 3 and 4. Day 3: Modules 5 and 6. Day 4: Modules 7 and 8. Day 5: Modules 9 and 10 |
| Four days, intensive | Day 1: Modules 1, 2 and lessons 3.1 to 3.2. Day 2: lessons 3.3 to 3.5, Modules 4 and 5. Day 3: Modules 6, 7 and lessons 8.1 to 8.2. Day 4: lessons 8.3 to 8.5, Modules 9 and 10 (shorten the exercises of 9.4 and 10.4 to demonstrations) |
| Hosting support staff | Modules 1, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 (about 19 hours, three days), then Hosting and operations |
| Ten half days | One module per half day, in order |
| Self-study | One module per week, with the exercises done on your own installation |
Assessing learners
Every lesson has a quiz and an expected result the trainer checks. As a final practical task, each learner gets a short brief on their own installation: create a group and a user at example.invalid, give them a role limited to one section, prove what the user may and may not do, find a prepared error in the logs, and take and restore a backup. This is the trainer's own assessment, not an official certification; the partner program's certifications are separate (Certifications). The Assessments and practical exercises course in the catalogue has more material.
Related pages
- Trainers: start here
- Course catalogue
- Hosting and operations: course overview
- Search: course overview
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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