Creating a new public instance

Multiple public instances are useful when you want to:

• Publish one part of a site to a different public instance.
• Manage multiple sites in one author instances and publish each site to a dedicated public instance.
• Add more public instances to cope with high load.
• Add more public instances to ensure high-availability.

Copying a public instance

The simplest way is to create a new public instance is to copy an existing one.

 Before you do this, back up the webapps folder and the database. There is always the risk of corrupting the existing instance.

1. Stop both your Public and Author instances.
2. Copy a public instance folder such as  magnoliaPublic. If you use an external database such as MySQL, copy the database folder too.
3. Rename the copied folder to magnoliaPublic2.
   
4. Delete unnecessary subfolders from the copy. The copy is a clone of the source instance. Some folders are essential to the new instance but others can be deleted.
   
   • OK to delete:
     
     • cache contains cached entries of the original instance.
     • logs contains log entries of the original instance. Empty log files will be recreated during server startup.
     • index subfolders in each /repositories/magnolia/workspaces/* folder. Deleting the subfolders reindexes the repositories. The rest of the repositories folders should remain intact.
     • tmp is a temporary folder which Tomcat or Jackrabbit uses for its processes during export/import.
   • Do not delete:
     
     • docroot contains the Tomcat docBase static resources.
     • META-INF
     • templates contains static resources.
     • WEB-INF
5. If you use an external database such as MySQL, connect the new instance to its database location. Edit the Jackrabbit configuration XML file in /webapps/magnoliaPublic2/WEB-INF/config/repo-conf. Each database has a file of its own, edit the file that you have configured in magnolia.properties in the magnolia.repositories.jackrabbit.config parameter. For example, if you use MySQL then edit jackrabbit-bundle-mysql-search.xml. 
    Add the connection information twice: once for the workspace section and once for the versioning section in the XML file. 
    
   You can also include a custom XML configuration file for your database. For more information, see Content storage and structure, Configuration and Setting up a Jackrabbit persistence manager.
6. If you use an external database, set the persistence manager also for each workspace. Workspace configuration XML files are in /<contextPath>/repositories/magnolia/workspaces/<workspace>/workspace.xml.
    
    The MySQL InnoDB storage engine is supported by Magnolia. InnoDB is the default engine in MySQL 5.5+. The MyISAM engine is not supported.
7. Start Magnolia.
8. On the author instance, configure the new public instance as a receiver.

Other ways to create a public instance

Other ways to create new public instances:

• Backup module. Use the Restore function. This creates a new public instance for the restored data automatically.
• Backup and restore JSP scripts. The Packager module is also useful here.
• Synchronization module. Create new public instances without shutting down existing ones.
• Programmatically by writing a cloneInstanceCommand.
• How to replicate a public instance lists many options to repair a broken public instance using a second instance.
• Jackrabbit DataStore for blobs in special cases.