Is symlinking templates across multiple collections a bad idea?

[ttran]

Hi Funnelback!

We'd like to minimise the time spend on maintaining our freemarker templates on an install. By symlinking the template files from the parent meta collection, to all it's child collections, we can just maintain the templates in the meta collection.

ln -s /opt/funnelback/conf/test-web/_default/custom.ftl /opt/funnelback/conf/test-web2/_default/custom.ftl
ln -s /opt/funnelback/conf/test-web/_default_preview/custom.ftl /opt/funnelback/conf/test-web2/_default_preview/custom.ftl

Is this considered good practice?

[gordongrace]

Hi Tim!

The approach you've described above is quite workable, but you may want to consider locking down user administrative privileges on the component collections, preventing an Template Editing User from making an edit to a component collection and having those changes cascade to all linked collections' templates.

Symlinking of config files across collections isn't always required - other collection-level settings can be used to define shared sources of certain configuration items. Examples include:

• https://docs.funnelback.com/more/extra/indexing_additional_metamap_source_collection_cfg.html - useful when standardising on metadata schema definitions
• https://docs.funnelback.com/15.8/more/extra/filter_jsoup_undesirable_text_source_collection_cfg.html

It's also worth noting that, when creating a profile within a collection (component or meta), the parent collection's current FTL files are NOT used as starting points - the global default templates are used instead.

[lnowak]

From Freemarker level, instead of symlinks, it would be better to use Freemarker "include" directive (http://freemarker.org/docs/ref_directive_include.html), for example:
in /test-web2/_default/custom.ftl file add this:
<#include "../../test-web/_default/custom.ftl" />
or more general approach, to include profile parameter:
<#include "../../test-web/${question.profile}/custom.ftl" />

[gordongrace]

Good suggestion from @lnowak there - this approach would have the benefits of:

1. Consistency across operating systems
2. No SSH access required (fully configurable via Funnelback Admin UI)
3. Obvious pointers to location of source template

These are all downsides of the symbolic link approach.

[plevan]

This article covers the process described by @lnowak https://community.funnelback.com/knowledge-base/implementation/search-interface/freemarker/sharing-simple.ftl-across-profiles

The other downside of symlinks is that there is no obvious cue that the file is symlinked - meaning it might inadvertently get edited and the edit will affect every template that is symlinked. Having the include makes it clear that the template is being shared and that if customisation occurs it forks the template.

[ttran]

Brilliant, thanks for all the suggestions all. Will definitely go with @lnowak 's suggestion from now on!