How to migrate from my test site to production?

dlangan · 2016-11-16 03:46:41

Hi there,

So, I've got my test site here http://www.deirdrelangan.com/TTG-TEST (index.php)

And my current live site is here http://www.deirdrelangan.com (index.html)

I'm almost ready to make my backlight (TTG-TEST) environment live.

Is it possible to just link (ln) one index file to the other? Or what is the best possible way to avoid downtime or to keep it to a minimum? I read previously that it wasn't possible to migrate galleries from test environments to production ones. If I can avoid re-publishing them all on my production/live site that'd be great as it took me a while to get the galleries looking how I wanted.

Thanks for fixing /textarea :-)

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Cheers
Deirdre

rod barbee · 2016-11-16 05:08:30

republishing your albums shouldn't pose a problem, other than the time it will take. You've already done the design and after moving things to the production site, your templates will all be there.

Are you wanting to completely replace your current live site with the new Backlight site?

If so, some prep work might need to be done, like creating collections in Lightroom of your existing galleries so that you have them in place for republishing.

If it was me, I'd create Lightroom collections from all the old galleries.
It looks like you've recreated your other pages already so then I'd remove from the server everything related to your old site

Copy over your backlight/ folder along with the index.php and .htaccess files.
You could probably move it all using your FTP program, but I'd suggest downloading to your computer and then uploading it all again to the root of your site. This keeps your test folder intact so you can use it for testing if you like.

Log in to backlight and update the site url, etc.

In Lightroom, change the API URL in Publisher to match the new location.

I don't know that you can just copy over your existing galleries/ folder. You can try it and then change the API URL in Lightroom. Check to see that they show up on your Galleries page and in your menu. If that doesn't work, empty out the galleries/ folder and republish.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Might be some others here will have other suggestions.

charlie.choc · 2016-11-16 05:12:49

If you have access to your web server settings you could just point the document root to your backlight directory and you'd be done, that's what I did and I still have my CE4 site as a backup. FWIW

rod barbee · 2016-11-16 06:25:32

charlie.choc wrote:

If you have access to your web server settings you could just point the document root to your backlight directory and you'd be done, that's what I did and I still have my CE4 site as a backup. FWIW

That's certainly worth a try. If it doesn't quite work as expected it should be easy enough to reverse.
(Some have had problems in the past with redirects)

charlie.choc · 2016-11-16 07:13:03

I wasn't suggesting a redirect just changing the document root directory for the server to the backlight one. Since my site is hosted on a computer in my basement I can do that easily but not sure if it is even possible if someone else is hosting.

In my case it's in the /etc/apache2/apache2,conf file - "DocumentRoot /var/www.backlight"

dlangan · 2016-11-16 20:20:56

Thanks Rod & Charlie!

Charlie - I don't have write access to my webserver so can't unfortunately change the doc root directory. But thanks anyway for the suggestion.

Rod - I want to keep my existing directories. I've hundreds of galleries down through the years. They're not accessible from my main website - I email clients the private link. But, my reason for wanting to maintain them in their current location is that it works for my SEO. I can't remember what I did all those years ago (tho' I did a good deal of research on it at the time) but whatever it was, it's still working for me so I'm not going to replace the whole lot with a few backlight galleries. They might look nicer but no-one would ever find them to see :-)

Many thanks,
Deirdre

rod barbee · 2016-11-16 22:29:35

you should have no problems leaving your existing galleries in their existing directories.

I'm guessing that they all live under one main folder? If so, I'd just recommend against using that same folder as a Backlight top-level galleries folder.

For example, if all your existing galleries are under a folder named 'galleries', then don't use 'galleries' as your Backlight top-level galleries folder. Either create another folder to house your Backlight albums or change the name of your existing 'galleries' folder to something else (which would change the URL to each of your galleries)

dlangan · 2016-11-16 23:03:54

Thanks Rod.

I followed your earlier advice & copied all backlight files to my root website directory, updated backlight site URL etc. It's all looking good! I've not fully tested it but so far so good & it was easier than I expected. So, with a few tweaks & a resolution to the arrow thing it's good to go!

Many thanks as always for your help :-)

Deirdre

rod barbee · 2016-11-16 23:42:08

glad to hear it

Community @ The Turning Gate

#1 2016-11-16 03:46:41

How to migrate from my test site to production?

#2 2016-11-16 05:08:30

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

#3 2016-11-16 05:12:49

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

#4 2016-11-16 06:25:32

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

#5 2016-11-16 07:13:03

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

#6 2016-11-16 20:20:56

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

#7 2016-11-16 22:29:35

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

#8 2016-11-16 23:03:54

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

#9 2016-11-16 23:42:08

Re: How to migrate from my test site to production?

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