Disable module output

By default, all modules are configured so that a module’s output can be written to a view. Turning off output offers a way to essentially disable a module that can not be disabled due to hard dependencies.

For example, the Customer module depends on the Review module, so the Review module can not be disabled. However, if you do not want customers to be able to provide reviews, you could turn off output from the Review module.

If a merchant used the Admin to disable a module’s output in a previous release, you must manually configure the system to migrate these settings.

The Output disabling is performed in following classes:

• \Magento\Framework\View\Element\AbstractBlock::toHtml
• \Magento\Backend\Block\Template::isOutputEnabled

Please note that by disabling the module’s output, the module is still enabled and keeps working, but no block, page or field is rendered on the frontend or backend.

Disable module output in a pipeline deployment

To disable module output in the pipeline deployment or any other deployment, with multiple instances of Magento:

1. Edit the Backend module’s config.xml file.
2. Export the configuration changes.

Edit the Backend module’s config.xml file

1. Archive the original config.xml file.
2. Add lines similar to the following to the <Magento_install_dir>/vendor/magento/module-backend/etc/config.xml file, directly under the <default> element:

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<advanced>
    <modules_disable_output>
        <Magento_Newsletter>1</Magento_Newsletter>
    </modules_disable_output>
</advanced>

Here:

• <modules_disable_output> contains a list of modules.
• <Magento_Newsletter></Magento_Newsletter> specifies which module to disable output for.
• 1 is the flag that disables output for the Magento_Newsletter module.

As a sample result of this configuration, customers can no longer sign up to receive newsletters.

Export the configuration changes

Run the following command to export the configuration changes:

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bin/magento app:config:dump

The results are written to the <Magento_install_dir>/app/etc/config.php file.

Next, clear the cache to enable the new setting:

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bin/magento cache:clean config

For more information about this command, see Export the configuration.

Disable module output in a simple deployment

The procedure for disabling module output on a single instance of Magento is easier because the changes don’t have to be distributed.

1. Archive the original <Magento_install_dir>/app/etc/config.php file.
2. Add the advanced and modules_disable_output sections to the config.php file (if they don’t already exist):

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'system' =>
  array (
    'websites' =>
    array (
      'base' =>
      array (
        'advanced' =>
        array (
          'modules_disable_output' =>
          array (
            'Magento_Review' => '1',
          ),
        ),
      ),
    ),
  ),

In this example, output for the Magento_Review module has been disabled and customers can no longer review products. To re-enable output, set the value to 0.