Web Backend

The plugin offers useful tooling through the /admin/setup route.

Protect these routes

Make sure this is properly ACL-protected — for example with TinyAuth and a few lines of config — if you enable the routing here. These actions should never be exposed to the public or to non-admins.

Setup

To use the backend, load the plugin with ['routes' => true] or provide the routes manually. Also make sure the optional Tools dependency is available in this case.

$this->addPlugin('Setup', ['routes' => true]);

Useful tools

Configuration dashboard

A dashboard with useful information about the server and the application.

See /admin/setup/configuration.

PHPInfo

Lists the phpinfo() page as you know it.

See /admin/setup/backend/phpinfo.

Cache

Details about the current cache configuration.

See /admin/setup/backend/cache.

Session

Details about the current session configuration.

See /admin/setup/backend/session.

Cookies

Details about the current cookies.

See /admin/setup/backend/cookies.

Database

An overview of the current database tables and their size.

See /admin/setup/backend/database.

You can exclude tables from this overview by configuring blacklistedTables:

'Setup' => [
    'blacklistedTables' => [
        'phinxlog',
        'sessions',
    ],
],

Foreign keys

Many applications forgot to add proper constraints and handling around foreign keys:

• NOT NULL foreign keys: The parent removes the child if it is deleted.
• NULL: The foreign key (parent_table_id) is set to NULL when the parent is deleted.

The first can be done either on the database level as a constraint or on the CakePHP application level (using the dependent config). The backend here focuses on the second part.

FK nullable

See /admin/setup/database/foreign-keys for an overview of all possible foreign keys, a list of possible issues, and the checks to run.

Make sure you apply the "nullable" foreign-key part to all existing rows in your database. The script contains a check to make sure your database is clean here before you apply those changes — otherwise the migration will fail to apply them.

This is especially important when you want to find all children that no longer have a belongsTo relation, using fk IS NULL. You can only trust the results here if you have the sanity constraints in place for cleanup of those fields on delete.

A proposed migration could look like this:

    $this->table('repositories')
        ->addForeignKey('module_id', 'modules', ['id'], ['delete' => 'SET_NULL'])
        ->update();

The module_id is DEFAULT NULL, so deleting the module now auto-sets this to NULL rather than keeping the old id (which can no longer be joined in).

See also

• Console Commands — the same database integrity tooling from the CLI.
• Uptime — the uptime route also lives under /admin/setup.