Site health check list

This process was written a long time ago and is due for review. It's been left here in case it's useful to you, but a different approach may apply for your projects.

Situation

Often once a site has been built and handed over to the client, there is usually nothing actively done about the various modules and packages which that site uses - other than the security updates.

As part of the "value add" offering that we provide to our clients, we should be performing an annual or bi-annual health check on the site.

What is a site health check?

A site health check is not about the security updates for a site. These are done proactively as and when these are released to ensure that the clients site is kept up to date and secure.

A site health check is more about running a regular audit on the site, like an MOT is on your car. This is to ensure that everything is running as it should be on the site and that there haven't been any issues creep in which have gone unnoticed.

What does the site health check list do?

The site health check list will check the following:

• Are the backups happening regularly and completing successfully?

• Is cron running regularly?

• Check the status page for any errors etc

• Check logging for any specific reoccurring errors

• Review user permissions and roles

• Review all non-security updates that might need to be applied

  • These might be Drupal module or node package updates

  • Having reviewed these, either all or a portion of these would be updated

• Check that the developer tooling is still current (e.g. Bitbucket Pipelines, Docker configuration etc.) and upgrade as appropriate

• Check the performance and caching levels that have been set

  • Use Google Lighthouse to measure metrics

• For Drupal sites; is the site ready for Drupal 9 upgrade?

Having reviewed the site, a report can be generated or tickets created in Jira to update various packages or modules and or make relevant changes to the sites configuration/ setup as appropriate.

Drupal 9 Upgrade

For Drupal sites that are running version 8.x, we will also perform a status check to see if it is ready for the Drupal 9 upgrade. This will check the currently used Drupal contributed modules as well as the custom modules that have been created for the site.

Based upon the outcome of this status check, Jira tickets will be created to address and contributed module updates that are needed as well as any custom code that needs to updated inline with the Drupal 9 upgrade.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.