Configuration installer

This project is deprecated

As of Drupal core 8.6 now supports Installing Drupal from configuration.

In order to update, the workflow with a site based off minimal and config_installer which currently is:

echo '$config_directories["sync"] = "../config/sync";' >> sites/default/default.settings.php && drush si config_installer

would become:

echo '$config_directories["sync"] = "../config/sync";' >> sites/default/default.settings.php && drush si minimal --existing-config

If you are using config_installer as your install profile or an install profile that implements hook_install() then you will need to change your install profile to minimal. If said install profile contains any modules you will need to copy those modules to your contrib module folder. Note that many install profiles are now compatible with core's install from configuration.

There will no Drupal 9 version

Introduction

The Configuration Installer project provides a means to install a Drupal 8 site using existing configuration.

This is not a module, Configuration Installer is an installation profile that loads configuration from a specified folder to 'install' the site. This is not a real installation profile either, it helps to install a real installation profile (e.g. minimal) along with an existing set of configuration.

Installation

Download the archive from the Drupal.org project page (or use Composer).

• https://www.drupal.org/project/config_installer
• composer require drupal/config_installer

The folder should be placed in the Drupal website root folder in:

/profiles/contrib

Usage

Install the site like you normally would (e.g. through the UI, using drush or drupal console). Note that it's probably better to install Drupal the first time using the minimal profile. This will avoid conflicts when importing the configuration (e.g. existing entities).

Edit the sites/[yoursite]/settings.php file and add the following line at the bottom if it does not exist yet, or change the existing line to match:

$config_directories['sync'] = '/path/to/folder/with/configuration'; 

Make sure user running the drush commands has read and write permissions to the folder. If you are installing via the web, the webserver will need read permissions as well.

You can now choose to change any configuration value in the administration user interface (e.g. the site name) or create new configuration (e.g. a content type or a view).

You can export your current configuration via drush:

drush config-export 

Make sure to create a backup before dropping all tables from the database.

Then re-install the site with the following command:

drush site-install --verbose config_installer config_installer_sync_configure_form.sync_directory=/path/to/folder/with/configuration --yes 

Once Drush completes the installation visit the site to confirm the configuration has been used to install the site.

@TODO: add some (more) tips for install hooks, etc?