BOA Documentation

Welcome. BOA documentation is split into four guides, one per kind of reader. Pick the one that matches how you use BOA — each guide is written for you and stays in your language, so you won't trip over material meant for someone else.

This is the only page that points at all four. Once you're in a guide, everything links within that guide; the platform catalogue below is shared by all of them.

BOA is the armoured vehicle for the Ægir engine

Ægir is the proven open-source control panel that turns "install, clone, back up and upgrade a Drupal site" into a few clicks. BOA is everything underneath it — web server, database, PHP, firewall, backups — installed with a single command and then looking after itself: no babysitting, no sysadmin background required. It Just Works™.

→ Ægir vs BOA: what the stack adds

What can I run on it?

Every codebase BOA supports ships as a ready platform under the Ægir control panel, and the catalogue is no longer Drupal only: Drupal (the current cores and a dozen distributions, Drupal CMS and Commerce among them, and CiviCRM), Backdrop CMS (with CiviCRM), Grav CMS (with KahunaCart shops) and Textpattern. One page lists them all with their keywords, versions and requirements, and each platform has a page of its own behind it.

→ Ægir Platforms

Which guide is for me?

🌊 Using BOA — for site owners on a hosted account

You log in to the Ægir control panel and your limited (SFTP) shell. You manage your own sites — create them, clone them, back them up, request SSL — but you don't run the server itself. No root, no installing.

→ Using BOA

⚓ Self-Hosting BOA — for running BOA on your own server

You have root on your own box and you want BOA to install, stay up to date, and recover when something breaks — without becoming a full-time sysadmin. Step by step, with safety rails.

→ Self-Hosting BOA

🐙 Operating BOA — the advanced root reference

You run BOA in production and you know your way around Ægir and Linux. You want the complete reference: every control variable, threshold, tuning knob, the monitor stack, security internals, backups, performance.

→ Operating BOA

🔧 Developing BOA — for BOA maintainers

You hack on BOA itself — the Barracuda/Octopus scripts and the Ægir forks. APIs, the build/test pipeline, the release and SKYNET mechanics.

→ Developing BOA

Quick reference (any guide)

Reference appendix — every control/INI variable, control file, and CLI command, each in a searchable index.
Discontinued features — what BOA used to ship and what replaced it.
Running Drupal 11? It needs Percona 8.4 — BOA installs Percona 5.7 by default: ask for percona-8.4 at install, upgrade a 5.7 box in two steps (5.7 → 8.0 → 8.4), or on a hosted plan ask your host for an 8.4 engine.