Sites

Frappe is a multitenant platform and each tenant is called a site. A site has its own database. Sites exist in a directory called sites, assumed as the current working directory when running a bench command.

Sites Directory

The sites directory frappe-bench/sites is where all the sites for this bench live. It also contains some other files and directories which are explained next.

apps.txt

This file contains a list of Frappe apps. An app should be listed here before it can be installed on a site. It is added automatically when bench get-app command or bench new-app command is run.

common_site_config.json

Configuration common to all sites can be put in this file. Learn more about site configuration.

assets

Assets contain files that are required to be served for the client browser. These generally include *.js, *.css, and image files. This directory is auto generated using the bench build command. This directory is served by Nginx in production.

Creating a new site

To create a new site, run the following command from the frappe-bench directory:

$ bench new-site mysite.local

Installing frappe...
Updating DocTypes for frappe        : [========================================]
Updating country info               : [========================================]
*** Scheduler is disabled ***

The mysite.local directory will now be created in the sites directory.

Directory Structure

sites/mysite.local
├── locks
├── private
│   ├── backups
│   └── files
├── public
│   └── files
├── site_config.json
└── task-logs

locks

This directory is used by the scheduler to synchronize various jobs using the file locking concept.

private

This directory contains files that require authentication to access. It contains private files and backups. They can be accessed by the URL: /private/files/private-file.png.

public

This directory contains publicly accessible files. They can be accessed by the URL: /public/files/public-file.png.

site_config.json

This file contains site specific configuration.

Site Config

A file named site_config.json exists in every site directory and is used to store site specific configuration. The values are available in frappe.conf local variable as a dict.

Example site_config.json:

{
    "db_name": "test_frappe",
    "db_password": "test_frappe",
    "admin_password": "admin",
}

To learn more about managing Site or Bench level configurations, checkout this comprehensive document.

Site Resolution

While responding to an HTTP request, a site is automatically selected based on,

• Host header in the HTTP request matches a site
• X-Frappe-Site-Name header in the HTTP request matches a site

It is also possible to force the development server to serve a specific site by starting it with the following command:

bench --site mysite.local serve

Set a site as the current site

To force a site to be used as the default site, run the following command:

bench use mysite.local

After running this command, site specific commands can be run without the --site parameter.

For example, instead of running:

bench --site mysite.local migrate

You can just run:

bench migrate