Inquiry Regarding Database Error

mannyw

The issue

Hi all, I ran into an issue using Flarum and just wanted some advice and ways to facilitate a workflow that avoids this in the future. I was attempting to push the forum to Github to make it easier to develop features like new buttons etc. However, I did not push the config.php file along with the storage and vendor files to Github, primarily because of database details being exposed with the config (I could have just used environment variables to conceal, but didn't) along with the perception that the storage and vendor files were not required (I was wrong). As a result, I had pulled the changes made to the server. Still, I quickly realized that this had resulted in the forum no longer being accessible, I attempted to roll back the changes but even with the files being brought back. The same config.php file being placed would throw the error below. I wondered why this was happening and how to fix it if possible. I also wanted to get advice on setting up a workflow so that an issue like this does not occur again. I understand this is a multifaceted inquiry but I would love to understand what I did wrong and learn from it.

Attached is the beginning of the log error message (stack trace not included as it is very long)
flarum.ERROR: PDOException: SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'flarum'@'localhost' (using password: YES) in /home/cleavr/siteurl/releases/20240601075405219/vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/ Driver/PDOConnection.php:40

luceos

mannyw The same config.php file being placed would throw the error below

That doesn't make sense honestly. Files are just files, if you restored a backup with the right database credentials the community should just work again. I assume something changed, either the database credentials in the config.php or something else. Make sure to test them manually (if you can).

mannyw I also wanted to get advice on setting up a workflow so that an issue like this does not occur again. I understand this is a multifaceted inquiry but I would love to understand what I did wrong and learn from it.

What developers usually do is:

use .gitignore to make sure the config.php is not committed into vcs
use .gitignore to include the several folders under storage without their contents (first ignore them, then force add empty .gitignore files from each directory into git)
use .gitignore to exclude the vendor directory
maybe use .gitignore to exclude public/assets, that's up to you because they also contain avatars

Gitignoring files makes sure they aren't overwritten when you pull changes to production (or locally for that matter).

Here's the .gitignore from discuss:

public/assets/*.js
public/assets/*.css
public/assets/*.js.map
public/assets/fonts
public/assets/rev-manifest.json
public/assets/avatars/
public/assets/extensions/
storage/
config.php
vendor/

mannyw

luceos Thank you so much for your reply, it is possible that the database credentials are incorrect and I need to be more cognizant in the future. I also wanted to ask how we go about adding custom additions to the site, for example, an additional button above each forum post or even embedding a form on the site. Would I need to modify the actual HTML/CSS/JS files in the code base for this to happen? Assuming that the functionalities in the admin panel are not enough for my current purposes.

luceos

Flarum is a Single Page Application that uses compiled Javascript to render the frontend HTML. If you want to customize the UX of Flarum you will need to use a (local) extender:

https://docs.flarum.org/extend/frontend