This article was originally published on the BackUpScale blog.

Background

Our customer dashboard, which will soon be used for managing subscriptions to our backup service (and not just newsletters and our contact form, as we’re doing now), is built on the Drupal data management framework. Until now, we’ve been hosting it with a company that specializes in hosting very specific types of applications, like Drupal. This wasn’t working for us because our service is running in our Kubernetes cluster at a cloud service provider that specializes in managed Kubernetes hosting, which let’s us run whatever applications we want, and configure them however we need. The challenge was getting the dashboard to communicate securely with our other applications.

It needs to communicate with our back-end systems in the Kubernetes cluster to:

1. send requests from customers to provision services,
2. configure customer accounts, and
3. receive status information from back-end services to create log entries that users can see in their accounts.

Why the old approach broke down

In order for things to work with the old set up, we’d have to:

• expose internal applications to the Internet (so the dashboard site could access them), and
• add additional layers of security to the communications to ensure privacy.

We didn’t feel as confident with this set-up as moving everything into our private Kubernetes network, which protects all of our services with a single firewall. Keeping non-public facing services within that network ensures that they’re not accessible by anyone on the greater Internet (except our staff using the company VPN), which ensures greater security and privacy for our users.

In order to make the change, we needed to be able to run a Drupal site within Kubernetes. Given that Drupal is a popular framework, and Kubernetes is a popular container orchestration system, we assumed that there would be good options for putting them together using open-source infrastructure as code (IaC) to handle the automated provisioning (we automate everything here). However, we weren’t able to find anything that could help us.

Evaluated options

We explored the following options:

• Bitnami’s Helm chart (no longer supported as of 2021)
• Jeff Geerling’s Drupal Operator (no longer supported as of early 2025)

The Bitnami Helm chart did at least one very strange thing: It was placing the Drupal code files on the persistent volume instead of placing them in the container image. We wanted the Drupal code (or at least the Composer files that build it along with any custom code) to be version controlled with Git. When we tried to work around this, they made it very difficult to make these changes.

Jeff Geerling simply stopped recommending his earlier approach (except for potentially hosting many sites on a hosting platform), and said that he currently uses his own Kubernetes primitives. So we took that idea, and expanded on it to build a fairly complete solution. Once we had something that worked for us, we believed we could make it generic enough to make it available to everyone else. So that’s what we did.

This move eliminated two Internet-facing endpoints and let us apply a single network-policy layer to all microservices. Additionally, running inside the cluster removes a public load balancer, and shrinks latency.

Meet “Drubernetes”

Because we automate all of our infrastructure with Terraform, we just released Drubernetes, a new module in the Terraform Registry, which provisions Drupal onto a generic Kubernetes cluster. It shouldn’t matter where your cluster is, who’s managing it for you, or if you’re managing it yourself on your own hardware. We wanted to provide something standardized that everyone can use and build from.

Contribute

Contributions are welcome! Please try it, and provide any feedback that you may have. The project is hosted on Gitlab.com, and any issues can be opened from the board.

As always, if you have questions or feedback, feel free to reach out. We appreciate your support and can’t wait to bring you the next chapter of BackupScale.

On July 11, 2025, the Japanese Drupal community reached a significant milestone with the first-ever Drupal Contribution Day held in Tokyo. This groundbreaking event brought together developers, translators, and Drupal enthusiasts from across Japan for a full day of collaborative contribution to the Drupal project and the broader open web ecosystem.

Setting the Stage for DrupalCon Nara

This contribution day was strategically designed as part of our efforts to strengthen Japan's Drupal contributor base ahead of DrupalCon Nara in November 2025. With DrupalCon Nara featuring a dedicated contribution space for all three event days, we recognised the importance of preparing our rapidly growing Japanese Drupal community to actively participate in global Drupal development.

The event welcomed a diverse range of participants, from experienced developers looking to contribute bug fixes and patches to newcomers interested in translation work and community building. The inclusive atmosphere fostered collaboration between seasoned contributors and first-time participants, creating an ideal environment for knowledge sharing and skill development.

Empowering First-Time Contributors

A highlight of the day was the First Time Contributors Workshop, delivered in Japanese by Jimmy Cann from Ironstar. This workshop proved invaluable in breaking down barriers for new contributors, providing hands-on guidance on navigating Drupal's contribution processes, understanding issue queues, and making meaningful contributions to the project.

The workshop's success was evident in the enthusiastic participation throughout the day, with several attendees making their first contributions to Drupal core and contributed modules. Special thanks go to mradcliffe, ninelivesblackcat, and larowlan for their support.

Tackling Real-World Issues

After Jim's contribution workshop, participants broke off into three groups focused on contribution relevant to the local community and users:

Internationalisation and Localisation: The team worked on critical issues affecting Japanese users, including problems with content transliteration where Japanese text was incorrectly being transliterated as Chinese. This work directly impacts the user experience for Japanese Drupal sites and demonstrates the importance of having diverse, international contributors.

Metatag Module Improvements: Contributors focused on resolving canonical link issues in the Metatag module, particularly problems affecting multilingual sites where canonical links weren't properly referencing the current language page. This work has direct implications for SEO and site architecture in multilingual Drupal installations.

Core JavaScript Enhancements: Advanced contributors worked on updating core JavaScript functionality, including the removal of deprecated UIEvent.which usage, ensuring Drupal stays current with evolving web standards.

CKEditor Integration: The team addressed issues with CKEditor 5 integration, working on problems related to image handling and element spacing that affect content editor experiences.

Community Spirit and Collaboration

Japan is already home to a collection of experienced contributors and we were grateful to have some of them attend and help in the mentoring experience. As with other Drupal communities spread across the world, this was another contribution event where there was a natural emphasis on sharing, collaboration, and inclusiveness. 

Acknowledgments

The success of this inaugural event would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors and the dedication of our speakers and participants.

Special thanks to our speakers:

• Kensuke Naoe from Ironstar Japan
• Jimmy Cann from Ironstar Australia

Heartfelt gratitude to our sponsors:

• Genero
• Ironstar Japan
• Previous Next
• Pixel Onion
• Stirling Marketing

Most importantly, very special thanks to all attendees who volunteered their time and energy to make meaningful contributions to Drupal and the open web. Your dedication and enthusiasm made this event a resounding success.

Looking Forward

The inaugural Drupal Contribution Day Tokyo 2025 represents more than just a single successful event—it marks the beginning of a new chapter for Drupal contribution in Japan. As we approach DrupalCon Nara in November, we're excited about the momentum building within the Japanese Drupal community.

One of our central goals for planning DrupalCon Nara has been to ensure that local Japanese-speaking community members had an opportunity to engage in the conference in their own language, even though English is the primary language of the conference. We're excited to have nearly a third of all accepted sessions for Nara be in Japanese, and now to have an experience group of Drupal contributors who can act as Mentors for their local community in their own language.

The Future of Open Source in Japan

The inaugural Drupal Contribution Day Tokyo 2025 proved that when diverse minds come together with a shared commitment to the open web, great things happen. Here's to many more successful contribution days and a thriving Japanese Drupal community!

See you at DrupalCon Nara! 

Mike Richardson, Chair, Drupal Asia Steering Committee

Keeping a Drupal site secure means staying on top of security updates, which are a kind of patch-level update. You may have heard of Automatic Updates, a tool that helps you apply patch-level updates to your site without the need to manually use Composer on the command line. Perhaps you’ve installed Drupal CMS and encountered it there or in the documentation as a feature. Before you dive in, make sure you understand what’s required and the best-fit use cases. Depending on your hosting provider and deployment workflow, you may already have the best update solution in place.

In this post, we’ll walk through what Automatic Updates can and can’t do, the technical requirements and limitations, a decision matrix to help you determine if it's a good fit, and where to learn more in the Drupal CMS Guide.

Introduction

DDEV works in various environments, and it's often tested in virtual machines, but nested virtualization can be hard to set up and may impact performance.

In 2024, VMware Workstation Pro became free for personal use.

This guide shows how VMware Workstation Pro can be used to prepare environments for both Windows and Linux, where Docker and DDEV perform well even inside a VM.

Warning: Nested virtualization may not work on all systems:

Virtualized Intel VT-x/EPT is not supported on this platform. Continue without virtualized Intel VT-x/EPT? VMware Workstation does not support nested virtualization on this host. Module 'HV' power on failed. Failed to start the virtual machine.

If this occurs, search for known workarounds specific to your hardware and BIOS/UEFI configuration. It worked out of the box for me on Arch-based Linux but did not work for Randy on Windows 11.

Installing VMware Workstation Pro

Download and install VMware Workstation Pro. You must click on the link to the terms and conditions to accept them before downloading (checkbox is inactive by default). Packages are available for Windows and Linux.

On Arch-based systems, install via:

Initial configuration steps:

• Edit > Preferences > Workspace > Default Location for Virtual Machines - use location with sufficient space
• Edit > Preferences > Hotkeys - remember shortcut to escape the VM, the default is Ctrl+Alt.
• Edit > Preferences > Updates > Configure update behavior
• Check other settings

Installing Windows 11

Download the Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices.

In VMware:

• File > New Virtual Machine > Typical > I will install the operating system later
• Select Windows 10 x64, not Windows 11 x64 (I don't want to use TPM encryption)
• Specify 100 GB disk, stored as a single file
• Customize hardware and finish:
  • Set at least 8GB RAM
  • Number of processors: 2, number of cores per processor: 2
  • Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI (check)
  • Virtualize CPU performance counters (check)
  • Network Adapter > Connect at power on (uncheck) - to be able to set up a local Windows account and skip Windows updates
  • Sound Card > Connect at power on (uncheck) - I don't like any beeps on the first boot, will be turned on later
  • USB Controller > Automatically connect new USB devices (uncheck if you don't need USB devices)
  • CD/DVD (SATA) > Use ISO image > Browse - select ISO file

To apply additional low-level VM configuration, close VMware itself and use the script below:

Press "Start up this guest operating system".

If Windows 10 was chosen as virtual machine type:

• Wait for the "Select Image" screen (where you choose which Windows to install), press Shift+F10 to open cmd, write regedit, open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup
• RMB (right mouse button) on Setup > New > Key > write LabConfig
• RMB on Values area > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value > write BypassSecureBootCheck, set 1
• RMB on Values area > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value > write BypassTPMCheck, set 1

After the first reboot (installation is not done yet), don't select country in the initial setup:

• Press Shift+F10, enter OOBE\BYPASSNRO (O letter, not number) directly in cmd. This is needed to force creation of a local account (I don't want to login anywhere here).

After Windows boots:

• VMware Menu > VM > Install VMware Tools
• Open Explorer, select D: drive with mounted tools, and run setup.exe
• Reboot

Windows configuration:

• Settings > Windows Update > Pause
• Explorer > This PC > View > Show > Filename extensions, Hidden items
• Settings > Home > Rename
• Settings > System > Power > Screen and sleep timeouts > Never
• Settings > System > Sound > More sound settings > Sounds > No Sounds, uncheck "Play Windows Startup sound"
• Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Task View (uncheck), Widgets (uncheck)
• Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors > Taskbar alignment > Left

Registry configuration:

Shutdown the virtual machine, press "Edit virtual machine settings":

• Hardware > Network Adapter > Connect at power on (check)
• Hardware > Sound Card > Connect at power on (check)
• Hardware > USB Controller > Automatically connect new USB devices (check if needed)
• Hardware > CD/DVD (SATA) > Connect at power on (uncheck)

Press "Start up this guest operating system", and run inside Windows:

• Search > Disk Cleanup
• Search > Defragment and Optimize Drives

At this point, the VM uses more disk space than needed. We can shrink guest on hosted platform:

• Add VMware Tools to PATH, run Terminal as admin:

  cmd /c "setx /M PATH ""C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools;%PATH%"""

• Restart PowerShell, and run Terminal as admin:

  VMwareToolboxCmd.exe disk shrink c:\

• Wait until *.vmdk file at virtual machine location will be shrinked.

VMware Menu > VM > Snapshot > Take snapshot.

Install Docker and DDEV. Create additional snapshots as needed.

Installing Linux

Follow similar steps as for Windows, using a Linux ISO (e.g. Ubuntu).

Install VMware Tools inside the guest:

If display resolution is incorrect:

If copy/paste from/to the host doesn't work:

References:

• https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/627
• https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/568

To configure shared folders inside the guest:

Shrink Linux VM disk, take a snapshot, then proceed with installing Docker and DDEV. Create additional snapshots as needed.

How Do You Test DDEV?

If you use a different setup that performs well, consider contributing a guest post to ddev.com or sharing your findings.

AI — one of the most breathtaking inventions of the 21st century — isn’t just changing the game; it’s rewriting the rulebook for effective website management and creation. The Drupal community knows this well, which is why embracing AI has become a top priority for the platform.

Join Carlos Ospina and Ana Laura Coto as they discuss their unique perspectives on work-life balance, the blending of personal and professional lives, and the challenges and opportunities within the Drupal community. From remote working experiences, integrating AI in their workflow, to the importance of small and medium-sized projects in sustaining the Drupal ecosystem, the conversation reveals insightful and diverse views. Hear their inspiring story of collaboration, love for Drupal, and their vision for making the Drupal community more inclusive and accessible globally.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe006

Carlos is a seasoned Drupal Architect and active contributor in the Drupal community. With over two decades of experience in open-source technologies, Carlos specializes in site architecture, development guidance, and performance optimization. He is the founder of Palcera, a digital agency looking to deliver high-quality Drupal services to clients across the Americas. Carlos is known for his community engagement through events, meetups, and mentorship within the Latin American Drupal scene and the US community. He frequently shares his knowledge through talks, workshops, and contributions to Drupal.org, helping to advance the platform and support new developers. Passionate about building inclusive tech communities, Carlos champions collaboration and continuous learning in open source and the development of a more global community for Drupal.

Ana is a dedicated Drupal developer and advocate. With a background in front-end development and user experience, Ana Laura brings a passion for building accessible, user-centered websites using open-source technologies. She is an active member of the Drupal community, contributing to both local and international events as a speaker, organizer, and mentor. Ana Laura is especially committed to fostering diversity and inclusion in tech, helping to create welcoming spaces for underrepresented voices. Through her contributions to Drupal.org and community initiatives, she continues to inspire collaboration and growth within the Drupal ecosystem.

• How We Met: A Unique Beginning
• Different Perspectives on Work-Life Balance
• Challenges and Benefits of Working from Home
• The Drupal Community and Family Life
• The Role of AI in Our Work
• Future of Drupal and Community Challenges
• Challenges and Opportunities in the Drupal Job Market
• The Evolution and Pricing of Drupal
• Reviving the Drupal Community
• Global Perspectives on Drupal's Future
• The Importance of Inclusivity in Drupal
• Personal Reflections and Future Goals
• Concluding Thoughts

A Drupal Couple The IXP Program IXP registration Site Palcera

Carlos Ospino A Drupal Couple camoa Ana Laura Coto A Drupal Couple anilucoto

Ongoing professional development is a fact of life for people who want a long-term career in technology. That means finding ways to learn new skills above and beyond what you’re paid to do. We all need to strike a balance between having a life outside of work, and making sure we’re learning new work-related skills. Your professional development should not take over your personal life, but if you only learn on the job you will limit your options over time and be bound to the generosity of your employer.

I changed jobs recently. In the process of leaving my old job I was asked a lot of questions about how I’ve built up a wide-array of skills and knowledge. During those discussions I tried to give the best advice I could on the fly to a question I was asked cold. Now I’ll try to assemble a set of more carefully considered advice.

These suggestions are more or less in the reverse direction of importance: the more you read the more valuable I think the suggestion is.

Directed Learning (Job Related Learning)

By “Directed Learning” I mean learning that is supported or encouraged by your employer. This can be certification preparation, employer provided trainings, or research into an emerging technology, even building tools that directly support your work. Into this category goes anything that can lead to higher pay, advancement, or even just keeping your current job.

Some employers are really good about this. Over time I’ve been sent to trainings, had course fees covered, and other direct support. The job I just left even provided financial incentives (cash) for us to acquire select certifications of value to the company. Other employers have published a list of what they wanted people to have – without direct incentive. But most often I’ve had to figure this out on my own which is not ideal of anyone involved.

This type of growth has a few benefits. First, it can help with your reputation (and hopefully pay) with your employer: “Oh, Aaron is certified on [interesting product] we can assign him to [high profile project].” Second, it helps make sure you are growing in alignment with your employer’s needs. That can be helpful when they are forced to make cuts: “We should keep Aaron, he’s the only team member with [rare certification] and Salesforce wants us to have that on the team.”

In my life as a Drupal developer this looked like creating modules for internal use, or learning new techniques. But it boils down to the same thing: learning stuff your employer needs you to know.

The downside of only learning what your employer needs is that you miss chances to grow beyond their needs. That limits your future mobility – your best chances will be for another job like you have today. If you want a better job or a job doing something different, you need skills your employers doesn’t think they care about.

Personal Learning: Side Projects and Other Self-Directed Research

To learn things your employer does not care about you will likely need to put in your own time. You should focus this kind of learning on something that interests you – make it fun. My experience is that this kind of learning goes best with side projects.

Side projects allow us chances to test and practice the ideas we’re learning. I use them to learn programming languages, frameworks, and techniques that interest me but not directly useful to my work. Sometimes they come around to being useful in my work. Sometimes they just give me a chance to learn interesting things. My Github account is full of examples.

An early professional mentor told me to learn a new programming language every year, and so over time I taught myself a bunch of programming languages. These days I generalize that advice a bit and try to learn a new platform, framework, or technique every year – and sometimes a new language. That meant when Salesforce rolled out LWCs to replace Aura Components, I was ready to learn them quickly. It also means when a friend started to talk about using Wails I could related from my experiences using Electron. My experience creating a project estimation tool helps me discuss estimation techniques with project teams.

This blog is an example of a side project. Every post gives me practice at writing. To keep posts accurate I include research as part of my writing process. That research teaches me things I wouldn’t learn otherwise. The act of writing forces me to clarify my thinking on topics. All of that is useful to me and helps me be better at my work. I also know this blog as been read by colleagues, employers, and potential employers all of whom are useful audiences when getting new work.

When I give talks about communication skills I tell people what they do for practice doesn’t matter: what matters is that they practice. Same is true for side projects. What project you tackle isn’t important. What is important is that you do something that forces you to learn new things.

Side projects help us look at our work from different angles, and therefore test our limits and grow.

Develop Learning Routines

It’s easy to get lazy or to put your professional development aside – it feels like there will be time later. So you should create a routine that works in your life.

I like to have a routine to make sure I’m steadily doing some form of professional development – it’s a marathon not a sprint. For me that generally looks like job-related learning for about an hour after my formal work day and working on a side project on weekends. Attaching your learning to your work day allows you to more easily block the time in your mind and with family.

I know people who like to do their study before work because that’s when they are fresh and study gets their brain into the right gear for the day. Other friends tell me they like to do research or study after their kids go to bed because it gives them more time with the most important people in their lives. All of those are great patterns because they are tailored to their life.

Whatever routine works for your life is a good one. The important part is to making learning a regular activity.

Share What You Know

One of the best ways I know to learn is to teach. Giving talks, writing blog posts, and mentoring all give me a chance to share what I know with other people.

Sharing can be intimidating. I have been writing this blog for nearly 10 years. I gave me first conference talk more than 10 years before that. And still, every time I take on a new topic I’m nervous I’ll be found to be a fraud.

I try to leverage the fear I feel to help me assemble the best content I am able (at least within my time and resource constraints). When I am writing, or preparing a talk, I also do a lot of fact checking. Since I never want to put anything into the world that I can’t back up later, I do my best to make sure I’m right. In the process I also learn more about the topic. That even means correcting information I was preparing because my initial understanding was wrong.

On the flip side I try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I require myself to post on my blog once a month – limiting my editing time. Similarly conference talks have a hard deadline. Those deadlines force me to complete content on a schedule, not when it’s perfect. So be it.

When you share what you know people start to see you as an expert. That can lead them to ask you questions that push you to learn more.

All that can lead you to be an expert.

Make Friends

Making friends is easier for some of us than others. And maintaining friendships in our current society is extremely hard. But friendships are super important. They help keep us healthy, mentally fit, and happy. Friends also teach us really important things about the world around us.

If you have read this blog much you are used to seeing me make references to my friends as sources of information. They are my greatest resource for learning (and a bunch of other things too). Friends know stuff we don’t know. Even better, they will tell you things you don’t know. Good friends don’t judge you for your gaps, but are happy to help you fill them.

I value the input and perspective that friends share with me. We don’t have to agree on everything. We don’t have to be interested in the same technologies. In fact both of those conditions help me understand things I wouldn’t know about otherwise.

I cite my friends in my writing because they are important. They deserve credit when they teach me things. Processing ideas with my friends helps me test them for quality. Often they point out errors in my thinking. Those are all good things.

Be Curious

This is one of the most important lessons I learned from my mom. She was a deeply curious person and that rubbed off on my sister and I. We both remember her dragging us to lectures at the RPI Freshwater Institute in Bolton’s Landing, NY (it’s fun to discover those still happen – I highly recommend if you’re in the area). And the time she took us to a ranger talk at a National Park where the ranger offered a postcard to anyone who asked a question he couldn’t answer – she promptly earned all his postcards with questions she genuinely wanted answered. She would stop and talk to keepers at the Philadelphia Zoo to learn more about the animals (a habit my wife and I both now share).

Because of her constant interest in, well just about everything, I have been to historic sites, factory tours, art and science museums, zoos, and many other places. My wife – a curious person herself with her own curious parents – and I continue those kinds of adventures. We go places, we ask questions, and we learn things.

We also read widely, both in our professional fields, and about the world in general. Long drives often involve several hours of listening to podcasts featuring experts in a variety of fields. I’ve previously talked about those as my ongoing Liberal Arts education.

If you aren’t someone who was trained to be curious by your family, it turns out you can do things to increase your curiosity. And yes, I found that article cause I was curious to know if curiosity is trainable – there are deeper articles on curiosity out there too.

The value in being curious is that it causes you to learn things you might otherwise have missed. Some of those things just make you smarter about your world – and the world needs more smart people. Others will suddenly pop up in your work and make you better at your job. They might come up in random conversation with a new friend and deepen your connection to another person.

Learning new things is never a bad idea.

Always Learn More

All this advice boils down to this central idea: always being learning something new. It’s good for your brain and good for your life (oh yeah, and career).

Reading through all of this commentary on professional development you might think: “Wow, that takes a lot of time!” But if you put yourself into a mindset of always trying to learn something new much of that times starts to overlap with other activities in life. And when it’s not all dedicated directly to work it doesn’t burn you out the way constant study of one technology of platform can.

Push yourself forward. Find things that are interesting to you. Nothing new is a waste of your time.