What a site is
A site is a named collection of web files (HTML pages, stylesheets, scripts, images) that Plexara serves for you. There is no server to rent and no hosting account to manage: Plexara stores the files, answers requests for them and checks who is allowed in.
A site doesn't have to stay a set of files. Make one of its environments part of a Plexara Application and its pages can call live endpoints, read and write an application database and take form submissions, like any advanced website. The examples work this way.
Every site has:
- A name, such as
helloorpledge-drive. It becomes part of every address. - An owner, the person who created it. The owner decides who can work on it and whether any part of it goes public.
- Environments, the versions of the site. A new site has two:
dev, the working copy, andprod, the version people use. See Environments. - Releases, numbered snapshots of the files. Each environment points at one release.
You build and change sites by asking the PBS SoCal MCP (Plexara), or in the Sites section of the PBS SoCal portal. Both act through the same rules, so they can never disagree about who may do what.
Addresses
Every site gets addresses under the PBS SoCal pages domain, pages.plexara.pmgsc-data.org. Using this guide's site, hello, as the example:
| Address | What it shows | Who can open it |
|---|---|---|
hello.pages.plexara.pmgsc-data.org | The main address. It shows whichever environment the owner gives it to, prod on a new site. | Private: sign-in required |
hello--dev.pages.plexara.pmgsc-data.org | The dev environment, the working copy. | Private: sign-in required |
hello--prod.pages.plexara.pmgsc-data.org | The prod environment, always, whichever environment holds the main address. | Private: sign-in required |
hello.pmgsc-data.org | An added domain, pointed at one environment (never dev). | Private, or public if the owner sets it public |
The pattern is always <site>--<environment> for a specific environment and <site> alone for the main address. The double dash is why site and environment names can never contain -- themselves.
Any domain
The pages addresses always work for people who sign in, so a site never needs a domain. When it should have a shorter or public-facing name, Plexara Pages can serve it on any domain:
| Kind | Example | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Internal subdomain | team-news.pmgsc-data.org | Nothing in DNS: every name under pmgsc-data.org already points at Plexara. An administrator switches it on and a certificate is issued in about a minute. |
| Custom domain | example.com, www.example.com, pledge.example.org | Whoever manages the domain points its DNS at Plexara. Then an administrator switches it on and a certificate is issued, the same as a subdomain. |
A domain is attached to one environment (any but dev), and an environment can have several. Every domain is added private, so it still asks for the PBS SoCal sign-in, until the owner or an administrator sets that one domain public. A domain can also be pointed at a whole application instead of a site.
Releases
Every time files are published or edited, the platform records a new release: a numbered, complete snapshot of the site. Release 1 is the first publish, release 2 the next change, and so on. Releases are never edited after the fact; a change always makes a new one.
An environment is a pointer to one release. That makes the important operations instant and safe:
- Promote points the next environment at the release the previous one serves. No files are copied, so what you reviewed in
devis exactly, byte for byte, what reachesprod. - Roll back points an environment at a release it served before. It's one step and takes effect immediately.
- Edits to one page store only what changed, so a small fix to a large site is quick.
Each environment keeps its last 50 releases for rollback. Older ones are cleaned up automatically each day.
What happens when someone opens a page
- Their browser asks for, say,
hello.pmgsc-data.org/about. - The platform looks up which site and environment that address belongs to.
- If the address is private, it checks they're signed in and allowed to open that environment. If they aren't signed in, it sends them to the PBS SoCal sign-in and straight back. People already signed in to the portal pass through with no click. See How sign-in works.
- It finds the release the environment points at and answers with the file for
/about:about.html, orabout/index.html. - If nothing matches, it checks the site's redirect rules, then answers with the site's own
404.html, or a plain not-found page.
Files are compressed and cached so pages load quickly, and the cache is keyed on each file's exact contents, so it can never show stale content after a promote or rollback.
Special files
A few file names have a job beyond being served:
| File | What it does |
|---|---|
index.html | The page for a folder's address. /index.html is the home page. |
about.html | Also answers at /about, with no extension. |
404.html | Your own not-found page. |
_redirects | Redirect rules, one per line: /old-page /new-page 301. Not served itself. |
_headers | Security headers per path. Not served itself. See Security headers. |
_layouts/ | Shared page templates. A site with this folder is assembled at publish. See Layouts. |
Names starting with a dot, such as .env, are refused when publishing, so hidden files from someone's computer can never end up on a web address.
In the portal
The Sites section of the PBS SoCal portal shows every site you can open. Each site's page shows its environments as cards, in order, with the release each one serves, its addresses, a Private or Public domain badge, and Who can open it. Promote, roll back, share and add a domain from there, or ask the MCP to do it for you.