How to Set Per-Website Defaults in config.xml

configuration

With custom modules I prefer to put system config settings in config.xml (the default settings part). This makes it easier when I push code from my local machine to a dev/staging/live environment as I don't need to go into admin and re-enter settings. There are other benefits too – it can be quicker to do things in a text editor and you can always have a sensible default if there is something in the config.xml for that.

I would like to do this for a multi-website Magento store that has different shipping prices for different websites (and store views). At the moment my stores are called 'euro', 'usd' and 'gbp'. The 'euro' view takes the admin defaults with no over-ride at the website level whereas 'gbp' and 'usd' views are with the over-ride at website level.

    ...
    <default>
    <carriers>
        <my_courier>
            <stuff_goes_here_such_as_price/>
            <price>15.00</price>
            ...
        </my_courier>
    </carriers>
</default>

Best Answer

You can add this using the <stores> node in your config.xml as follows.

<stores>
    <store_code>

You can also do this on website level with the <websites> node in your config.xml as follows.

<websites>
    <website_code>

The only examples of this in the core code is in the admin side because these are the only websites or stores that are guaranteed to be in the system. Check out app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/etc/config.xml for an example.

<websites>
    <admin>
        <web>
            <routers>
                <frontend>
                    <disabled>true</disabled>
                </frontend>
            </routers>
            <default>
                <no_route>admin/index/noRoute</no_route>
            </default>
        </web>
    </admin>
</websites>

Related Solutions

Magento – Config.xml Settings in Database

In theory you can set any config value in the database (table core_config_data).
But for most of the cases, the values saved there have the path column like this: section/group/field. So only 3 parts. The cron schedule is an exception.

The general config of Magento comes from different sources. All of these sources are merged into one big xml. In case there are 2 nodes with the same xpath, every source will overwrite the previous source.
Here is the order of loading the config.

All the xml files located in app/etc (no subfolders). This is loaded in Mage_Core_Model_App::_initBaseConfig().
All the modules. Files located in app/etc/modules. This is done by Mage_Core_Model_Config::_loadDeclaredModules()
The config.xml for all active modules loaded previously. Done in Mage_Core_Model_Config::loadModules()
core_config_data table values. Done in Mage_Core_Model_Config::loadDb.

From all of these, magento creates one big config xml and smaller ones for each website and store view deriving from the main one.

And here is an example.
Let's say that you have this inside the config.xml of a module.

<default> <!-- config scope node -->
   <some_section>
       <some_group>
           <some_field>2</some_field>
       </some_group>
   </some_section>  
</default>

And you have in the db a line with the same path some_section/some_group/some_field and with the scope default, but the value is 1.
In the big config the final value will be 1 because the db config is loaded last.

A side note. When reading a value from the config, you cannot know if the value comes from any xml file or from the db and you shouldn't care.

Magento Multi-Store Setup – Base URLs at Global Scope

What you mentioned already, is correct. The Global scope is the same as the Admin scope. They are not quite the same, but because all other scopes (Store View, Store, Website) are managed from within the Magento Admin Panel, the Magento Admin Panel needs to have the scope Global to work. This also means that the Base URL of your Global Scope needs to point to the Magento admin URL. However, Magento has also introduced the option "Custom Admin URL" as you mentioned - and this complicates things a little bit. As I understand it, the "Custom Admin URL" should be used if the Magento backend should be only accessed through a private URL (for instance, an internal URL for people behind a corporate firewall) - so this would then become privateseparatenode.com. However, the Magento global scope might still need contacting from the outside world. For instance, if PayPal does an IPN callback, it contacts Magento and this might be on the global scope (don't know if this is actually true or not), and for that reason you would need a public URL like publicseparatenode.com. So in short, the Custom Admin URL is normally only needed if the Admin needs to be accessed through a private method, while the global scope (Base URL in Global Scope) should be publicly accessible.

In short: Your setup seems completely correct in that the Global Scope is using the domain separatenode.com (assuming it is publicly accessible). However, I've seen third party modules in the past that did not respect the scoping at all, and simply loaded stuff from the global scope because that seemed easier. So your issue might be with a third party module (?).

The fact that your Magento backend is on a different node is not important. With Magento, it is suggested that you have one "virtual" application instance pointing to one "virtual" database, even though there could be multiple application instances on different nodes pointing to the same database, or multiple database instances because of clustering or alike. Think of it this way: There is one Magento configuration tree, which has values across multiple scopes. That same configuration tree is accessed from your Magento backend node.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Magento – Config.xml Settings in Database

Magento Multi-Store Setup – Base URLs at Global Scope

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