AEM cloud: farms vs vhosts

[TB3dock]

We have several sites hosted in our AEM cloud instance.

When we want to add a new site, we add the domain and SSL cert in the cloud manager, then we addnew vhosts file in dispatcher/src/conf.d/available_vhosts and a symbolic link in enabled_vhosts.  Thats it. We don't do anything with farms config.

Looking for documentation, there only seems to be one way to add new sites, using farms: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-dispatcher/using/configuring/dispatcher-d...

The question is,

1. what are farms?

2. what are the pros/cons of using farms vs just vhosts?

3. why is the easy route to adding domains via a vhost file not documented?  I.e. is there a problem with using this method?

[Peter_Puzanovs]

Hi TB3dock,

1.

Config's that communicate with Dispatcher.so module mostly live in farms,

Apache HTTP config's reside in vhosts.

As per Adobe Docs here's good explanation of the farm files.

Explanation of Dispatcher configuration files | Adobe Experience Manager

2. We can put absolutely everything into one huge vhost file. It's more of a logical separation used across all projects that makes life is easier long term and for AEM as a Cloud to read your configs correctly.

3. What get's described in docs is again standard approach in AEM to add multiple domains. The documented method takes into account aspects that you need to incorporate to launch site on AEM as a Cloud.

Regards,

Peter

[TB3dock]

Hi, I read the "Explanation of Configuration Files", but it doesn't say what they are for. WE dont use them at all - we have nothing in "enabled_farms". Presumably farms are not required, and not used usually. We are trying to understand if farms are any use, serve any purpose, and if, so what?

[Albin_Issac]

The vhost is the apache configuration that helps to match the incoming request specific to a DNS or IP and apply required rewrite and other configurations(e.g., Headers) as needed.

The /farms is a dispatcher module-specific configuration; the /farms property defines one or more sets of Dispatcher behaviors, e.g., filters, where each set is associated with different websites or URLs.

Regards

Albin

https://www.albinsblog.com

[TB3dock]

Thanks for the replies.  However, Im still confused, should we be using farms or vhosts?  Do they overlap?  The docs use farms, but we are not using farms.  Should we be using farms instead of vhosts?

[Albin_Issac · Accepted solution]

Both Vohost and farms should be enabled, currently either a default farm configured or no filtering, caching, and other dispatcher-related configurations applied.

Refer to Configuring Dispatcher | Adobe Experience Manager and Using Dispatcher with Multiple Domains | Adobe Experience Manager for more details on dispatcher farms configurations.

Regards

Albin

https://www.albinsblog.com