Archiving a Drupal Site from a Previous Semester

Older Drupal course sites are periodically removed from the server for security and performance reasons. Course sites may be archived by following these steps:

1. Turn off the interactive features of the old Drupal site—such as commenting, log-in, and others—by following the instructions below.
2. Contact David Blakesley by email to let him know that your site is ready for archiving. He will prepare it from the server side.
3. After receiving a reply from Prof. Blakesley, scoop your site using HTTrack (Windows) or SiteSucker (Macintosh).

An archived site is a static version of a live Drupal site (here is an example). It may be placed on another server (such as your Purdue career account www folder) or burned to a CD.

Preparing Your Old Drupal Site for Archiving

First, go to your old Drupal site and log in so that you have administrative access. Be aware that the archiving process can only get material that is accessible to anonymous users. Any portions of your site that are private will not be archived.

1. Make sure you have copies of all your file attachments. The archiving software may not pick up all file attachments, so make sure you have copies of handouts, images, presentation files, etc. that you have attached to your Drupal site.
2. Disable the "User login" block.
   Path = administer > site building > blocks
   Change the "Region" drop-down box next to the "User login" block to "none."
   Click "Save blocks" at the bottom of the page.
3. Disable the "Who's online" block (if activated).
   Path = administer > site building > blocks
   Change the "Region" drop-down box next to the "Who's online" block to "none."
   Click "Save blocks" at the bottom of the page.
4. Disable any custom blocks that you have created that deliver dynamic content from 3rd parties.
   Path = administer > site building > blocks
   Change the "Region" drop-down box next to the block to "none."
   Click "Save blocks" at the bottom of the page.
5. Turn off registration.
   Path = administer > user management > user settings
   Under "Public registrations" (near the top) select the box next to "Only site administrators can create new user accounts."
   Click "Save configuration" at the bottom of the page.
6. Disable commenting.
   Path = administer > user management > permissions
   Uncheck the boxes next to "post comments" under the "comment module" section for all roles.
   Click "Save permissions" at the bottom of the page.
   
7. Disable any "login" links you might have added to the primary links or navigation menu.
   Path = administer > site building > menus
   Disable any links to login, log-in, sign-in, register, etc. that you might have included by clicking "disable" next to the link.
   
8. Turn off the Search box and Search menu item.
   Path = administer > site building >themes > configure tab
   Uncheck the box next to "search box" in the "toggle display" box.
   Click "Save configuration" at the bottom of the page.
   To turn off the Search link on the navigation menu:
   Path = administer > site building > menus
   Find the Search menu item and click on "disable," then answer affirmatively when the system asks if you really want to delete it.
   
9. Post a message to the front page noting the site has been archived.

Now that you have prepared your site for archiving, contact David Blakesley and be sure to give him the full URL of your site. He will prepare your site from the server side. After you receive an email reply from him, you may scoop your site using HTTrack (Windows) or SiteSucker (Macintosh). Once your site is scooped, you are finished. You may burn your scooped site to a CD, put it on another server, or whatever you wish.