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.localhost

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.localhost
├── 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: /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.localhost 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.localhost

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

For example, instead of running:

bench --site mysite.localhost migrate

You can just run:

bench migrate