Configurations for Deployments
The UmbracoDeploy.Settings.config file is empty by default, but there are some optional settings you can set in the file to ignore certain types of file, increase timeout limits, etc.
Edition
The default value for this setting is Default
, which configures Umbraco Deploy to work according to how we expect most customers to use the product. Umbraco schema, such as Document and Data Types, are serialized to disk as .uda
files in save operations. These are checked into source control and used to update the schema in the upstream environments via a trigger from your CI/CD pipeline, or automatically if using Umbraco Cloud.
Items managed by editors - content, media and optionally forms, dictionary items and members - are deployed between environments using the transfer and restore options available in the backoffice.
It is possible to use this method for all Umbraco data, by setting the value of this setting to BackOfficeOnly
. With this in place, all data, including what is typically considered as schema, are available for transfer via the backoffice.
Our recommended approach is to leave this setting as Default
and use source control and a deployment pipeline to ensure that structural changes to Umbraco are always aligned with the code and template amends that use them.
However, we are aware that some customers prefer the option to use the backoffice for all data transfers. If that is the case, the BackOfficeOnly
setting will allow this.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy edition="Default|BackOfficeOnly" />
</settings>
ExcludedEntityTypes
This setting allows you to exclude a certain type of entity from being deployed. This is not recommended to set, but sometimes there may be issues with the way a custom media fileprovider works with your site and you will need to set it for media files. Here is an example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<excludedEntityTypes>
<add type="media-file" />
</excludedEntityTypes>
</settings>
RelationTypes
This setting allows you to manage how relations are deployed between environments. You will need to specify an alias and a mode for each relationtype. The mode can be either:
Exclude
- This causes the relation to be excluded and not transferred on deployments.Weak
- This causes the relation to be deployed if both content items are found on the target environment.Strong
- This requires the content item that is related is set as a dependency, so if anything is added as a relation it would also add it as a dependency.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<relationTypes>
<relationType alias="relateParentDocumentOnDelete" mode="Weak" />
<relationType alias="relateShopItemOnCreate" mode="Exclude" />
</relationTypes>
</settings>
ValueConnectors
This setting is used by package creators who wants their custom editors to work with Deploy. The packages should be creating this setting automatically. There is a community driven package that has value connectors for Deploy called Deploy Contrib.
Here is an example of how the setting can look:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<valueConnectors>
<valueConnector alias="nuPickers.DotNetCheckBoxPicker"
type="Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors.ValueConnectors.NuPickersValueConnector,Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors" />
<valueConnector alias="nuPickers.DotNetDropDownPicker"
type="Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors.ValueConnectors.NuPickersValueConnector,Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors" />
<valueConnector alias="nuPickers.DotNetPrefetchListPicker"
type="Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors.ValueConnectors.NuPickersValueConnector,Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors" />
<valueConnector alias="nuPickers.DotNetTypeaheadListPicker"
type="Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors.ValueConnectors.NuPickersValueConnector,Umbraco.Deploy.Contrib.Connectors" />
</valueConnectors>
</settings>
Timeout settings
Umbraco Deploy have a few built-in timeouts, which on larger sites might need to be modified. You will usually see these timeouts in the backoffice with an exception mentioning a timeout. It will be as part of a full restore or a full deploy of an entire site. In the normal workflow you should never hit these timeouts.
The defaults will cover most though. Changing the defaults by updating the /Config/UmbracoDeploy.settings.config
. There are four settings available:
sessionTimeout
sourceDeployTimeout
httpClientTimeout
databaseCommandTimeout
These timeout settings default to 20 minutes, but if you are transferring a lot of data you may need to increase it.
It's important that these settings are added to both the source and target environments in order to work.
A fifth timeout setting is available from Umbraco Deploy 9.5 and 10.1, allowing for the adjustment of the maxmimum time allowed for disk operations such as schema updates.
diskOperationsTimeout
This setting defaults to 5 minutes.
All of these times are in seconds:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy sessionTimeout="1800" sourceDeployTimeout="1800" httpClientTimeout="1800" databaseCommandTimeout="1800" diskOperationsTimeout="60" />
</settings>
Batch settings
Even with appropriate settings of the above timeouts, Deploy's backoffice transfer operations can hit a hard limit imposed by the hosting environment. For Azure, this is around 4 minutes. This will typically only be reached if deploying a considerable amount of items in one go. For example, a media folder with thousands of items can reach this limit.
An error message of 500 - The request timed out. The web server failed to respond within the specified time.
will be reported.
If encountering this issue, there are two batch settings that can be applied with integer values (for example 500). This will cause Deploy to transfer items in batches, up to a maximum size. This will allow each individual batch to complete within the time available.
sourceDeployBatchSize
- applies a batch setting for the transfer of multiple selected items to an upstream environment (such as a media folder with many images).packageBatchSize
- applies a batch setting to the processing of a Deploy "package", which contains all the items selected for a Deploy operation, plus all the determined dependencies and relations.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy sourceDeployBatchSize="1000" packageBatchSize="500" />
</settings>
Transfer Queue
In earlier versions of Umbraco Deploy, the transfer queue was implemented using in-memory storage. As a result, it would not be persisted across application restarts.
From 4.7, a database backed queue was implemented and is used by default.
If for any reason there was a need to revert to the previous implementation, the follwoing setting can be used.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy useDatabaseBackedTransferQueue="false" />
</settings>
Transfer Forms data as content
In order for Deploy to handle Forms data as content, you'll need to add the following setting to UmbracoDeploy.Settings.config
:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<forms transferFormsAsContent="true" />
</settings>
On changing this value from false
to true
, make sure to remove any .uda
files for Forms entities that have already been serialized to disk. These will no longer be updated. By deleting them you avoid any risk of them being processed in future and inadvertently reverting a form to an earlier state.
Transfer dictionary items as content
In a similar way, Deploy can be configured to allow for backoffice transfers of dictionary items instead of using files serialized to disk, by adding the following setting to UmbracoDeploy.Settings.config
:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<dictionary transferDictionaryAsContent="true" />
</settings>
Please see the note above under TransferFormsAsContent on the topic of removing any existing serialized files having changed this value to true
.
Ignoring missing languages For dictionary items
When deploying dictionary items, an exception will be thrown if a translation is provided for a language that doesn't exist in the target environment.
Normally this is a useful fail-safe to ensure translations aren't lost in the transfer operation.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<dictionary ignoreMissingLanguagesForDictionaryItems="false" />
</settings>
If you have deleted languages that have already existing translations, you may want to temporarily remove this check. You can do that by setting this value to true
.
When this is in place a translation for a language that doesn't exist in the target environment will be ignored. A warning message will be output to the log.
Setting empty dictionary items on transfer
When deploying dictionary items, Umbraco Deploy follows the approach used for all content, emptying values that are transferred and set.
If you transfer a dictionary item with an empty translation to another environment that already contains a translation, it will be overwritten.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<dictionary transferDictionaryAsContent="true" setEmptyDictionaryItemsOnTransfer="true" />
</settings>
Set this value to false
to not overwrite already populated values with empty strings.
Transfer members
As of version 4.5.0, it's also possible to transfer members and member groups via the back-office between environments. This is disabled by default as a deliberate decision to make use of the feature needs to be taken, as for most installations it will make sense to have member data created and managed only in production. There are obvious potential privacy concerns to consider too. However, if being able to deploy and restore this information between environments makes sense for the specific workflow of your project, it's a supported scenario.
To enable, add the following setting to your UmbracoDeploy.Settings.config
configuration file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<members allowMembersDeploymentOperations="None|Restore|Transfer|All"
transferMemberGroupsAsContent="true|false" />
</settings>
The allowMembersDeploymentOperations
setting can take four values:
None
- member deployment operations are not enabled (the default value if the setting is missing)Restore
- restore of members from upstream environments via the backoffice is enabledTransfer
- transfer of members to upstream environments via the backoffice is enabledAll
- restore and transfer of members from upstream environments via the backoffice is enabled
It's important to ensure a common machine key is setup for all environments. This will ensure hashed passwords remain usable in the destination environment.
With transferMemberGroupsAsContent
set to true
, member groups can also be transferred via the backoffice, and groups identified as dependencies of members being transferred will be automatically deployed.
Please see the note above under TransferFormsAsContent on the topic of removing any existing serialized files having changed this value to true
.
Exporting member groups
This setting is to be defined and set to false only if you are using an external membership provider for your members. You will not want to export Member Groups that would no longer be managed by Umbraco but by an external membership provider.
Setting the exportMemberGroups
to false will no longer export Member Groups to .uda files on disk. By default if this setting is not present, its value will automatically be set to true as most sites use Umbraco's built-in membership provider and thus will want the membership groups exported.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy exportMemberGroups="false" />
</settings>
Ignore broken dependencies
When restoring or transferring content, Umbraco Deploy will make checks to ensure that any dependent content, media or other items are either present in the target environment, or can be deployed from the source environment.
For example, if you have a media picker on a content item, that references a media item that's been deleted or is in the recycle bin, you'll get an error and the deploy won't complete until the issue is resolved (by removing the reference to the deleted media item).
You can configure deploy to ignore these issues and proceed with the transfer operation without warning, with the following setting:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy ignoreBrokenDependencies="true" />
</settings>
For finer control of the above setting you can add a further attribute named ignoreBrokenDependenciesBehavior
and set the value to either All
(the default), Transfer
or Restore
.
For example, using the following settings, you will have an installation that ignores broken dependencies when restoring from an upstream environment. It will however still prevent deployment and report any dependency issues when attempting a transfer to an upstream environment.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy ignoreBrokenDependencies="true"
ignoreBrokenDependenciesBehavior="Restore" />
</settings>
Memory cache reload
Some customers have reported intermittent issues related to Umbraco's memory cache following deployments, which are resolved by a manual reload of the cache via the Settings > Published Status > Caches dashboard. If you are running into such issues and are able to accomodate a cache clear after deployment, this workaround can be automated via the following setting:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy reloadMemoryCacheFollowingDiskReadOperation="true" />
</settings>
By upgrading to the most recent available version of the CMS major you are running, you'll be able to benefit from the latest bug fixes and optimizations in this area. That should be your first option if encountering cache related issues. Failing that, or if a CMS upgrade is not an option, then this workaround can be considered.
Deployment of culture & hostnames settings
Culture and hostname settings, defined per content item for culture invariant content, are not deployed between environments by default but can be opted into via configuration.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<content allowDomainsDeploymentOperations="None|Culture|Absolute|Hostname|All" />
</settings>
To enable this, set the configuration value as appropriate for the types of domains you want to allow:
Culture
- the language setting for the content, defined under "Culture"AbsolutePath
- values defined under "Domains" with an absolute path, e.g. "/en"Hostname
- values defined under "Domains" with a full host name, e.g. "en.mysite.com"
Combinations of settings can be applied, e.g. Hostname,AbsolutePath
.
Deployment of public access settings
When deploying content items, public access rules based on member groups are transferred. You can amend this behavior using this setting.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<content allowPublicAccessDeploymentOperations="None|AddOrUpdate|Remove|All" />
</settings>
None
- no public access rules will be transferredAddOrUpdate
- public access rules added or updated in a source environment will be transferred to the destinationRemove
- public access rules removed a source environment will be removed in the destinationAll
- all public access information will be transferred
AddOrUpdate
is the default setting used if no value is configured.
Deployment of trashed content
Specifies options for handling trashed content (documents, media and members) on export or import:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<content trashedContentDeploymentOperations="None|Export|Import|All" />
</settings>
You can amend this behavior using this setting:
- None - trashed content will not be exported or imported
- Export - trashed content will be included in an export
- Import - trashed content will be processed and moved to the recycle bin on import
- All - trashed content will be included in an export, processed and moved to the recycle bin on import
Media File Checksum Calculation Method
Deploy will do comparisons between the entities in different environments to determine if they match and decide whether to include them in the operation. By default, for media files, a check is made on a portion of the initial bytes of the file.
This corresponds to the default setting of PartialFileContents
.
If a lot of files need to be checked, this can be slow, and a faster option is available that uses the file metadata. The only downside of changing this option is a marginally increased chance of Deploy considering a media file hasn't changed when it has. This would omit it from the deployment.
To use this method, set the value to Metadata
.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy mediaFileChecksumCalculationMethod="PartialFileContents|Metadata" />
</settings>
Number Of Signatures To Use All Relation Cache
When reviewing a set of items for a deployment operation, Deploy will retrieve and include relations. It does this either via single database lookups, or by bringing all relations into memory in one step, and retrieving them from there.
For small deployment operations, the former is the more optimal approach. It gets slow though when the number of items being transferred is large.
The cut-off before switching methods is set by this configuration value, and it defaults to an operation size of 100
items.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy numberOfSignaturesToUseAllRelationCache="100" />
</settings>
Ignore Media File Path Too Long Exception
When restoring between different media systems exceptions can occur due to file paths. They can happen between a local file system and a remote system based on blob storage. What is accepted on one system may be rejected on another as the file path is too long. Normally this will only happen for files with particularly long names.
If you are happy to continue without throwing exceptions in these instances you can set this value to true
. For example, this may make sense if restoring to a local or development environment. If this is done such files will be skipped, and although the media item will exist there will be no associated file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy continueOnMediaFilePathTooLongException="true|false" />
</settings>
Suppress Cache Refresher Notifications
When a Deploy operation completes, cache refresher notifications are fired. These are used to update Umbraco's cache and search index.
In production this setting shouldn't be changed from it's default value of false
, to ensure these additional data stores are kept up to date.
If attempting a one-off, large transfer operation, before a site is live, you could set this value to true
. That would omit the firing and handling of these notifications and remove their performance overhead. Following which you would need to ensure to rebuild the cache and search index manually via the backoffice Settings dashboards.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy suppressCacheRefresherNotifications="true|false" />
</settings>
Resolve User In Target Environment
With this setting assigned a value of true
, Umbraco Deploy will attempt to resolve users when transfers are made to new environments.
Users and user groups are maintained separately in different environments, so it isn't always the case that an editor has accounts across all environments. When an account exists matching by email address, Deploy will associate the changes made in upstream environments with the user that initiated the transfer. Allowing the expected information about save and publish operations to be available in the audit log of the environment where the data was transferred.
When the setting is set to false, or a matching account isn't found, the audit records will be associated with the super-user administrator account.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings xmlns="urn:umbracodeploy-settings">
<deploy resolveUserInTargetEnvironment="true|false" />
</settings>