Redirector

Nginx configuration and supporting tools and tests for the redirector, keeping our old websites on the internet, because cool URIs don't change.

Adding a new website

n.b. during these instructions WEBSITE should be replaced with the name of the site being added (eg 'communities' for the site www.communities.gov.uk).

Create the mappings CSV

Create a file data/mappings/WEBSITE.csv containing three columns:

Old Url – the original URL
Status – either 301 (when redirecting to a new page) or 410 (when the page has gone)
New Url – optional when the Status is 410

It should be sorted on the Old Url column (this makes diffs between commits more readable).

Create the site in the repository

In the redirector directory, create a new configuration file containing the nginx server block(s) needed for the site.
Add WEBSITE to sites.sh.
Copy the static assets from redirector/static/_skeleton to redirector/static/WEBSITE and edit as necessary.
- 404.html – add the date, department name and the new homepage (e.g. https://www.gov.uk/dclg)
- 410.html – add the date, department name, new homepage, the National Archives timestamp and the old website address (this is for the National Archives link creation - for example, for DCLG the timestamp is 20120919132719 and the website is www.communities.gov.uk)
- gone.css - this does not require any change

Create the required tests

Valid Lines

Add a valid lines test script: tests/logic/sources/WEBSITE_valid_lines.t, using one of the others as a template. This will be automated but is currently a manual step. It is required because jenkins.sh tests all the mappings before attempting to build.

Subset test

This is a quick test of the most important urls which will be run on every deployment.

It doesn't need to be 250, and it can just be a random sample, but ideally it would be the top 10% or so mappings in terms of importance.

Create a sample mappings file containing up to 250 urls, e.g. tests/integration/test_data/top_250_WEBSITE_urls.csv.
Create the test script, e.g. tests/integration/sample/top_250_WEBSITE.t you can base it on tests/integration/sample/top_250_directgov.t

You can run this test using prove -l tests/integration/sample/top_250_WEBSITE.t but it will not pass until the redirector is deployed.

Complete test

This is a full integration test which is run on a nightly basis

Create test scripts at tests/integration/ratified/WEBSITE/ you can base them on the tests in tests/integration/ratified/directgov/

Dry-run the post-commit build

Run bash jenkins.sh before committing and pushing the new site to confirm that it doesn't break, which would stop anyone from deploying.

The last line output by jenkins.sh is "Redirector build succeeded."

Deploy the redirector to preview

A jenkins commit will kick off the Redirector build, followed by the Redirector-deploy (which only deploys to preview), then followed by the Redirector-Integration-Subset.

You should make sure that these tests all pass before you deploy to production.

Deploy the redirector to production

You must deploy the redirector to production before altering puppet.

There is no release tag - all that is required for the production deploy is the build number of the latest Redirector job.

Add the website to puppet

Add the new config file(s) to the puppet repository, in the file modules/govuk/manifests/apps/redirector.pp:

file { '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/WEBSITE':
  ensure => link,
  target => '/var/apps/redirector/WEBSITE.conf',
  notify => Class['nginx::service'],
}

Test against preview

Deploy puppet to preview to activate the website's configuration with nginx.

Run the subset and full integration tests against preview to confirm that all links are actually being redirected.

export DEPLOY_TO=preview
prove -l tests/integration/sample/top_250_WEBSITE.t
prove -l tests/integration/ratified/WEBSITE/

Test against production

Once the tests pass in preview, deploy puppet and run the tests against production.

export DEPLOY_TO=production
prove -l tests/integration/sample/top_250_WEBSITE.t
prove -l tests/integration/ratified/WEBSITE/

Once they pass, you can now proceed to switching the domains to the redirector.

annashipman / transition-config