Posted by spjsche on Fri, Mar 13, 2026 - 12:15pm

The following below statements is true for both Backdrop and Old Drupal 7 on a standard installation.

So I can make a change, say to the $conf['site_name'], and it is changed in the next page load.

But the same does not occur when working with a Docker Backdrop container.

The container needs to be restarted for the changes to take effect.

Is this correct ?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks...

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Overview of settings.php in Backdrop

The settings.php file in Backdrop CMS is a crucial configuration file that is loaded during the initialization of the Backdrop application. It is called every time the Backdrop site is accessed.

Frequency of Calls

  • On Every Request: The settings.php file is executed on every page load. This means it is called each time a user accesses the site, ensuring that the latest configurations are applied.

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Comments

Fri, Mar 13, 2026 - 3:25pm by yorkshirepudding

I use Lando (a wrapper for docker) and find settings changes happen straight away

Sat, Mar 14, 2026 - 5:29am by spjsche

Thanks for the info.

I will give it a try...

Sat, Mar 14, 2026 - 9:42am by spjsche

I have had a read of what Lando provides, and it's an excellent development tool, and it would solve the problem.

But, I would prefer to find out why the problem is there in the first place.

This does not happen on Drupal 7 running in a container.