I have a production Wordpress site, but in parallel I want to run a development site. Once I am done with the development, I want to deploy it to the production site without ruining the current site regarding, users, comments, etc.
My current solution is to duplicate the production site, and re-install again- but than I can lose information.
Did not find any solution that can do it.
Any suggestions?
If you are developing a wordpress-theme/plugin, you can just dump the live-db, replace the domain and use it in development. After you finished developing, you can dump it again, insert/update your content for production, deploy only your theme and replace the db of your production environment with the one of your dev-environment
If your site has already go public, things will be more complex. I suggest you setup a maintenance mode and then dump the db to development site.
If you are developing theme/plugins, you can just upload the theme/plugins files. Leave the data in the dev site.
If you are modify the site through wp-admin(change theme/plugins settings), you have to upload the db data.You don't need to dump all data, for example, you don't need to dump the dev site's comment data and import to production site. But this way, you must know WordPress database schema very well.
Always, backup your site before you do any changes.
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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
Trying to figure the best way to develop on plesk.
I would like to develop my wordpress website on a temporary url, and attach the production domain only when I am done developing.
From some reason I'm getting various dns errors, saw a guide referring to change of hosts file but it dosent seem like the perfect solution to me.
Any tips?
You may create the clone of your WP instance (staging) and use Plesk Git extension for developing this staging WP site. After making all necessary changes on staging non-public clone you can publish it to a production domain to make it publicly available.
I have a live site built in Wordpress at www.site.com/name1.
The client wants a new theme. I've heavily modified the current theme with custom code and will need to do so with the new theme, all without interrupting the live site, so this wont be as simple as moving the site from one theme to another. Therefore I think I need to create a duplicate of the site at www.site.com/name2 because the content will all be the same. Doing this will give me a place to work on the redesign.
What is the best way to go about doing this? Should I have both use the same DB or not? When I get ready to go live should i simple redirect the domain to /name2 or move everything at /name2 to /name1?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris
If you want the same Data you can use the same DB but there is somes Options Tables dans Meta tables in the Wordpress DB, then if you change parameters on one site it will affect the other.
If you just recode the Theme without touching anything in the configuration you can use the same DB to test your theme with valid datas, but if you think you'll have to change paramaters i would prefer duplicate the Production DB to a Test DB to secure the production Website.
When you go live you'll just have to move your theme to the production website and copy your Option and Meta Tables.
If you're at a point where you're having clients, you should definitely develop locally. This will free you from the trouble of mistakingly messing up the production site.
Install Apache, MySQL and PHP on your own machine.
Copy database and files from production.
Change anything you'd like without exposing it to the Internet.
Upload your new, tailor-suited theme to production when it's ready to go live.
I am having a website redesigned. The designers plan to use Wordpress as the CMS and want a development copy to work with. Thing is, I now have Wordpress installed to run a blog (only) on a subdirectory of my current site.
Soooo...question is: Can I create a subdomain, install Wordpress on there, point it at a separate (new) schema on MySQL and have them use that for the development work? I know I can physically do this, but will anything about running the the WP install scripts on the subdomain screw up the existing production install on the main domain?
The install itself should not create any problems. Personally, I always develop WP sites in their own subdomain, allowing me to do away with the wordpress/ subdirectory.
The most significant hurdle will come when you are ready to move the development site to a new domain and/or place in the directory hierarchy. Although the theme files and their associated CSS, JS, etc., files should be using relative-path references, the database itself may contain hundreds of fully qualified URLs that reference the development domain and/or directory.
There are a number of WordPress plugins that address this problems. The one I am most familiar with is BackupBuddy from ithemes.com. (I'm not a shill, just a satisfied customer.) BB is useful both for performing scheduled backups (full or database-only), but it is also very useful during development and during deployment. There is an included script, importbuddy.php, than can not only take a .zip of a full backup and restore the site, it can also move the site from one directory and/or domain to another.
Note: BackupBuddy is not free, but it is released under GPLv2. You are paying for the support necessary to keep it tracking changes in the WP ecosystem. If you are doing any serious WP work then it is money well-spent. You might suggest this to your designers.
Yes you can do it. It doesn't matter. You can install your new blogs to any directory or subdomain (actually they're directories, too). Also you can use new MySQL databases for them, or you can use same database for your all WP installations (by editing wp-config.php manually), thereby you'll have same content for your all WP blogs.
Technically, yes you can do it.
However, if you have a live domain with public people using it, you are best not developing on either the same domain or server, because:
Mistakes happen. You can break the database or other code.
While you develop, you can affect performance of the server.
Develop on a local machine, or a completely different server, and when you are happy with it, push the code live onto the production server.
if you are planning to make a test copy of the current install on a subdomain which includes separate source code and database the answer is NO it will not affect your current installation.
In a wordpress installation we want to have our main site, and a staging site separated and different. Where in the admin interface you separate your staging area?
Let's say:
for production you will have: http://www.yourdomain.com/
but for staging we want to have: http://www.yourdomain.com/staging
Staging is the website that will be in production next.
Any ideas?
With Wordpress 3.0+ you might be able to create a network of sites or install multiple sites with an older version of Wordpress. The catch is I don't know of an easy way of moving the staging to production. I'm not entirely sure that will do what you want, but you may want to look into it.
Personally I'd think you'd probably be better off keeping your staging and production sites on 2 different servers and just do a copy over when you move to production.
I don't know of any instant, simple answers, but have you seen this article in the Wordpress support forum? It has some informed discussion and at-least partial solutions:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/one-wpseveral-servers
If your staging site doesn't need any database modification, or custom forms/widgets for the backend, you can create a new theme, and test it in the preview mode. When done, you can switch the theme to the new one!