I'm looking for an easy way to sync content that is in the Wordpress DB with the file system. Pages and Posts mostly, but any additional content would be great. I'm not looking to cover 100% of the DB content, just the most used configurations.
This is the Wordpress workflow I'm looking for:
Create a file in the filesystem, ie. /repo/posts/mypost.yml
Run a Wordpress command-line, ie. wp sync, which checks for sync status between my filesystem /repo/ and the content in the database.
Differing content from the db is exported and from the filesystem imported.
In case of conflict (double changes in both), ask for merge or whatever.
This is very common with the newer, file-based, CMSs, like Grav, Kirby, Jekyll, etc. but unfortunately, for many reasons, we're stuck with Wordpress.
That way we can use git and edit and version content in a much more robust way.
WordPress already has built-in version control in the database, called revisions. If you use different user accounts, WordPress will even lock pages that are being edited, preventing collisions.
Additionally, you can export the database to an .sql file and store it in your custom theme directory which you should manage with git. You only need to version control your custom theme directory, because all non-custom WordPress files already have version control. However, you can export the database every now and then to keep your git repository complete. Additionally you should ask your hosting provider to create daily backups.
This will give you full version control on everything (git for the theme and WordPress for the content). Developers will be able to take the git repository and rebuild the installation locally, to change the theme. Content can be edited remote in WP, with WP versioning and daily back-ups for security reasons.
Note that exporting your database to an sql file can be done by using a database manager like PHPmyAdmin or Adminer and using the export functionality or by using a WordPress plugin.
Related
I have a Wordpress-theme-based web published on the net, uploaded in a hosting.
I have to edit/simplify/modify the whole page, offline, on local for example.
While I make the changes offline, the page (an online magazine) has to keep online, as it is, until I publish the new version.
I have to be able to show the changes online, without affecting the original until the end.
What is a good way to do the whole process? Thank you very much.
Make offline server by installing eg. XAMPP.
Copy files, and export database from online to local,
Modify wp-config.php to match local database settings
Modify theme offline
Upload theme to online FTP when work is done
Make sure if changes you made are only in wp-content/themes/theme_name files - not in database content. If not, you will have to sync databases.
You can make the same to work online by cloning your WP to eg. subdomain, then protect it by htpasswd, to prevent unauthorised access.
I assume you mean with the same content?
One way is to make a copy of the main database (possibly refresh it now and then) for a second install online, with same plugins, settings etc.
Another way (bit riskier, but would give realtime sameness) would be to have a demo install on the same server that shares the same database: https://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#table_prefix. I'd suggest with a custom user and usermeta where NO ONE has update privileges to avoid updates to the main site https://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#Custom_User_and_Usermeta_Tables
I've been asked to help out with a former colleague of mine's Wordpress Site. Nothing crazy, just change the format of a page, and add some kind of form on another page. I'm not so concerned with these changes I need to make, but am more concerned with setting up an identical site locally so that I can exercise these changes, do whatever I need to do, then simply upload my changes.
Quick background of myself; web developer of about 5 years with strengths in the Javascript frameworks and Node sphere. I know what Wordpress is and can navigate through the project with relative ease. Where I fall short is uncertainty in the project set up side of things.
So I have both the project itself and an export of my clients database, and configuration is updated accordingly. When I attempt to run the site I'm constantly prompted with errors, most of which have me take a look at the code and see what exactly the problem is. At this point I've made quite a few adjustments to the site to try and make it work that I feel continuing development won't get me anywhere.
Is duplicating an existing site to a local env usually this difficult? Could bad implementation of the initial site by the previous developer be a reason why I'm now struggling? Am I missing a step?
Duplicating a WordPress website is not that difficult. If you have the wp admin login of your website then you can simply use duplicator or akeeba backup plugin, but no worries, if you do not have the wp login access and just have the wp files & db then try this: create a new db from phpmyadmin, place your files in wp theme directory, install your new wp by using your new db file created, after that import your db file and do the following changes in your wp config file found in your root directory.
You will need to type in the new database information: database name, database user, and the password.
Once you have updated those, click Save Changes
Fixing your Permalinks
Log into your WordPress Dashboard, using the username and password from the copy of WordPress you brought over
Under Settings, click Permalinks
You don't have to make any actual changes, just click the Save Changes button.
Doing this will update all the page and post URLs. If you have custom themes or plugins/widgets with old URLs, you will have to update those manually since there are not any plugins that are able to modify those as well.
For ref:
https://my.bluehost.com/cgi/help/2361
https://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/how-to-easily-import-or-export-any-of-your-wordpress-database-content-using-phpmyadmin-3415
I've created a web application based on this free Wordpress Theme:
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/wp-themes/simple-non-profit/
All ok in localhost environment, but when I uploaded the site on remote (PHP + MySQL + Email active), the admin panel changes, and shows me only a part of whole admin menu.
e.g., admin panel doesn't show me the theme customization page and the slideshow customization page, that instead, in local environment, I have it.
Can you help me??? Thanks!
It might be that the live server is running a different version of PHP, or has config settings that make it different from your local environment.
However, my guess is that you haven't modified the database properly when you transferred it and that is the cause of your problem (I would suggest that it's nothing to do with the theme).
Moving Wordpress databases from your local development environment to live can be a massive pain because Wordpress (and lots of plugin/theme developers) use serialized arrays to store data. So if you do a find-and-replace on the database to replace your old url with the new one, you will disable lots of things like config settings and widgets (text widgets specifically, but there's loads of stuff you end up having to recreate).
Download this file;
http://interconnectit.com/124/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
and upload it to the server and access it directly in your browser. Run through the quick form and perform a serialized array-friendly find and replace on your database urls. Job done.
Delete the database on the live server and copy the local version of the database again, but this time use the instructions in the thread above to change all the instances of your local url path to the live domain url.
Ok, so I'm familiar with creating local Wordpress builds, and have been chugging along happily with the technique outlined in Smashing's MAMP-based article. My question goes a step beyond this.
The article is great for developing generic themes, but when developing sites (not necessarily blogs) based in Wordpress, for me at least, it's a little painful come launch day.
I have to go back in and reconfigure the server's Wordpress to match what I've already done locally. Settings have to be entered again, plugins need be installed again, menus recreated, and css will have to be altered to reference the unique classes/id's Wordpress generates for posts/pages/custom taxonomies…sometimes things are missed in the process. What I want to know is this:
Is there an easy way to automate cloning or mirroring the build on my local machine to the remote server?
Even if you have to just LMGTFY me, that would help. I don't exactly know what I should be searching for. Searches dealing with 'mirroring wordpress configuration' and 'cloning wordpress configuration' returns tutorials on moving content, which I know how to do.
If it helps, I'm running OSX 10.6.8 with xcode dev tools, git, ruby, node, and homebrew. All of my live servers have ssh access as well as ftp, and I build with the most current versions of Wordpress.
Here are some easy steps to follow:
Download and install the WP Migrate DB plugin.
Go to Tools > WP Migrate DB and fill-in the blank fields(New address (URL), New file path and optionally check/uncheck the other options). Click on Export Database and save the export file to your computer.
Make a .zip archive with ALL of your files(the /wp-admin, /wp-content, /wp-includes directories and all files in the root directory).
Upload that file to your production server, where you want your WordPress site to reside.
Go to your cPanel(or use the unzip command through SSH) File Manager(or any other alternative that you might have) and unzip the file that you just uploaded.
If you don't already have a Database set-up on your production server - create one through the hosting control panel(for cPanel, it would be Creating a mySQL database in cPanel, for plesk it would be Plesk 7 Tutorial: Creating a database, for anything else, just google it up, or try your hosting's FAQ). Remember/write-down your Database Name, Database User and Password.
Edit the wp-config.php file and change the values for the DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD and optionally DB_HOST - but this is usually localhost - if that doesn't work try asking your web host, or if you have phpMyAdmin, log-in to it and look at the very top of the page - in this case the DB_HOST would be localhost.
After you've done all of that, log-in to your DB administration tool(most of the time this would be phpMyAdmin, but it could be something else as well) and upload the database export file that you save to your computer in step 2. Note: If your hosting hasn't provided you with a DB administration tool, I would suggest that you upload the phpMiniAdmin(click on the "Download latest version" link and save the file to your computer) script to your production server. Then go to that script(if your website is located at http://example.com/, go to http://example.com/phpminiadmin.php) and enter your DB details. On top of that page, you will see an import link. Click on it and upload your DB export file. Note 2: phpMiniAdmin doesn't support gzip-compressed files, so if you did check the Compress file with gzip option in step 2, you will have to re-do that step with this option unchecked.
Log-in to your site and go to Settings > Permalinks in order to update your permalink structure.
Check the permissions of the /wp-content/uploads and /wp-content/plugins directories - make sure that you will be able to upload images and plugins without any problems.
That's pretty much it. It might seem like a lot, but I follow this process for almost every site that I upload to production servers and it can take me as less as a bit under 10 minutes to do all of that(considering that I usually use custom MySQL commands, instead of the WP Migrate DB plugin - I should probably start using it :) ). Once you get used to the process and you don't encounter any low-quality web hostings, you should be perfectly fine with these steps.
Note: Since you used ssh as one of your tags, I assume that you usually have ssh access to the production server. If you don't I'm still assuming that you have a cPanel access(if that's not true and you can't unzip files on the server, then upload all files manually via FTP client, instead of doing steps 3 and 4).
I guess the only way is to copy the database or part of it.
What I do is to copy the relevant tables and modify manually the site URLs in table options. There are only 2. There is also a nice plugin velvet-blues-update-urls to modify all links, after the site URLs are set manually to be able to access the backend, in case posts are also copied.
Next, copy all theme directory files to the same directory in the site, assuming you are using the same theme.
Both processes can be automated with a PHP script.
I am not sure this is what you want, but hope this helps.
Not sure that this is exactly what you need, but to move a site you can use the built in Wordpress "export" and "import" options. As far as I remember there was an option when importing to change URL's and the import would change a few things for you.
Even if this does not answer your exact question, hope it helps.
My Wordpress blog appears to have been hacked and now blogs do not save and any changes I make such as approving a comment do not have effect. I am trying to backup my website so as to uninstall wordpress and perform a clean re-instillation. I want to create a backup so that when i restore the website will appear with everything the same as before: posts, images, links, colors, comments, themes, pages, etc. I have already backed up the MySQL database successfully. How do i backup the rest of the site.
Please tell me how to backup the site and also how to restore the site.
Thanks
You need to backup both your database and your Wordpress installation. The main resource to use for this is the Wordpress site:
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups
If you have phpmyadmin installed you can do a database dump from ther. If you don't have this installed then use mysqldump.
Wordpress installation backup can be initiated through the following URL:
http://[yourwordpressurl]/wp-admin/export.php
That will contain "your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags".
These links should get you started:
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/01/29/how-to-backup-and-restore-your-wordpress-blog/
http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress_backup.htm
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups
Good idea to look at FAQ: My site was hacked « WordPress Codex and How to Completely Clean a Hacked Wordpress Install.
best thing to do is to manually copy the database, as wordpress restore has an upload limit on the built in restore function. so if you've been blogging for a while, this can be really bad.
mysqldump -u yourUsername -p yourDatabaseName > databaseName.sql
will create the file databaseName.sql this is a full clone of all your database info (all your posts & wordpress configs)
then you can restore later with
mysql -u yourUsername -p yourDatabaseName < databaseName.sql
I figured it out. One way to cleanly install a new version of Wordpress but not lose your website is the use the Wordpress export feature as mentioned by Jon.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Tools_Export_SubPanel
This exports your blog to an XML file that contains all content of your site: posts, comments, authors, pages, etc. However, images do not go with. However when importing this XML file there is an option to download and import the attachments automatically which can be done if the original site is still online. So what I did is export my XML file, upload it to a wordpress blog installed on a subdomain automatically getting the attachments, then export an XML file from the subdomain to import into the actual wordpress site. This way my attachments were simply moved around from site to subdomain back to site. This made it easy because I did not have to handle backing up my attachments manually.
So what I did was back up my theme, export my blog to XML, then delete wordpress and my database then reinstall it with a new database on both my site and a subdomain of my site.
Then I imported my XML file and put my theme in the themes folder of the subdomain. Then I exported an XML file of this subdomain copy of my site and imported it into my real site. This made my blog have all the content correct and the theme right but none of the links, plugins, or colors correct. I then had to customize wordpress through the panel to get it back to the look and feel it was. For this It was lucky I had a stored copy of the site to refer to.
This process was long because I actually had to rebuild my site twice, one for the subdomain and then again for the actual thing. But it fixed my problems.
You can simply use EverLive.net. No need to install any plugin. No need for shell access. With this service you can simply make your wordpress website backup to the cloud. One-click restore option is also available wheneven you need to restore.