Step-by-Step Guide: Setting Up Drupal on Acquia Cloud Hosting

What is a Drupal Distribution?

Think of a Drupal distribution as a ready-to-use package of Drupal.

 It comes with:

• Drupal core
• Extra modules
• Themes
• Installation profiles

These are combined to give you a full solution out of the box. For example, if you need a blog, or e-commerce site, many pre-built distributions are available.

Prerequisites for Drupal 11

Before installing, make sure you have the right setup:

1. PHP 8.3 – Update your environment and developer tools (Cloud IDE, Code Studio) to use PHP 8.3.

2. Database support – Acquia Cloud still uses MySQL 5.7, but Drupal 11 needs MySQL 8.

   ○  Install the MySQL 8-to-5.7 backport driver so Drupal 11 works on MySQL 5.7.

Option 1: Install Drupal Using Composer (Recommended)

Composer is the easiest and most reliable way. Here's how:
 

1. Clone Your Acquia Repository

git clone sitename@serverName.hosting.acquia.com:Sitename.git ProjectName
cd ProjectName
git checkout -b my-new-branch

2. Create a New Drupal Project

composer create-project --no-install drupal/recommended-project

Then update composer.json to use docroot instead of web:

sed -i'.original' 's/web\//docroot\//g' composer.json

3. Install Drush

composer require drush/drush --no-update

4. Install Dependencies

composer update --lock

This will:

• Download Drupal
• Add Drush
• Set up the recommended file structure

5. Create a Database

Click on the Databases on the left bar of the overview page of stage/Dev environment and then click on Add Database.

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5.1 Connect Database to the site

To connect the database to the site click on “Database Name” on the Databases page then click on the PHP tab on Database page and copy and paste the text to the end of the settings.php file.

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5.2 Configure Your Site

Copy and edit settings

cp docroot/sites/default/default.settings.php docroot/sites/default/settings.php

Add this line for configuration sync:

$settings["config_sync_directory"] = $app_root . '/../config/' . basename($site_path);

Add below database connectivity text to the end of the settings.php file. Change 

if (file_exists('/var/www/site-php')) {
require '/var/www/site-php/YouSiteName/DatabaseName-settings.inc';
}

6. Push Your Code to Acquia
 

git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit of new Drupal site"
git push --set-upstream origin my-new-branch

Switch your Acquia environment to this branch.

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7. Clean Your Database (Optional but Recommended)
 

../vendor/bin/drush @my.alias sql-drop

Now go to /core/install.php in your browser and follow the installation wizard.

Option 2: Install Using Acquia Cloud UI

If you prefer a point-and-click setup:

1. Log in to Acquia Cloud.
2. Go to the environment where you want Drupal installed (not Production).
3. Click Install Drupal. ( See Screenshot-1)
4. Pick a distribution or enter a URL for your own. ( See Screenshot-2)
5. Follow the on-screen Drupal installation steps .

Screenshot-1

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Screenshot-2

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Option 3: Installing Drupal in Cloud IDE

Cloud IDE makes it easy to set up Drupal without much hassle.
Here’s how you can do it:

1. Open your Cloud IDE.

  ○    If you don’t already have one, first create a Cloud IDE (see the “Getting Started with Cloud IDE” guide).

 

2. Click “Create a New Application.”

  ○  This will open a terminal window where you’ll be asked to pick either the Acquia Drupal Recommended project or the Acquia Drupal   Minimal project. 

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3. Choose your Drupal version.

     ○  Type the number shown for the version you want and press Enter.

     ○  The system (Acquia CLI) will automatically install Drupal in the /home/ide/project folder.

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4. Start working on your site.

   ○    Once Drupal is installed, you can begin development right away.

   ○    You can also push your database and files to Acquia Cloud by running:

         ■    acli push:db (for database)

         ■    acli push:files (for files)

   ○    Remember: your code should always be managed with Git as the best practice.