So for backing up any/all my WordPress sites i use a tool called "BACKUP BUDDY" and its
a great tool and all but lately its been really buggy and today finally it went kaboom!
Usually my workflow is that i develop the site on my local machine using WAMP/MAMP.
when done and ready for testing i use the tool, move it to my personal test server to test and when happy and work is approved, i move to the real server.
Since my tool stopped working(uploads half the content) i decided to just do it manually by installing Wordpress first on the real webserver(done), Applying my theme(done),
then exporting the database sql from the local server(done), and thereafter importing it to the real server(done) and the 2xs that ive done it the site comes up blank.(outcome equals major fail!)
im assuming that something has to be changed/done in order for it to work but not sure what.
unlike a normal DB where i can talk to the info as normal, since WP is a CMS im assuming that it ties the info to the domain but again, i dont know how it 100% works...
Any ideas as to what im doing wrong? because as of now, if i cant do it like this, id have to manually create ALL the pages. Plus, if i was going to then move it from my real test server to final real destination then id have to manually redo it all again...
Thanks in advanced.
you aren't doing anything wrong. It sounds like your particular workflow could be as follows.
Upload the contents of the site via FTP
Create & Import the database via PHPMyAdmin, changing any info in wp-config.php
Define the site url, in wp-config.php [See below]
Use a tool to find & replace any hard-coded site-urls that wordpress loves to use. [See below]
Example code:
Define site urls
define('WP_HOME','http://example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://example.com');
Find replace tool
Replace
http://localhost/
with
http://www.your-new-site.com/
That should be it. It's live!
You can export it using phpMyAdmin and then use bigdump to import it. download bigdump from here and make sure you read the first note about the exporting process, found here
http://www.ozerov.de/bigdump/usage/
here is a bash script you can use to automate this entire process for you: https://github.com/jplew/SyncDB
Related
My site is messed up and I am trying to fix it, and regardless of it I get help, it is going to take awhile likely, and it's really important that my site be live, even if it's a crappy version with just the articles and no template.
Would it not work to make a backup of the database, install Joomla fresh (the same version) and connect it to that duplicate database (then point my domain there) and then go back to working on fixing the current site that is live now? Are there any issues I should know about going in? There's a good chance the issues are related to the template or extensions (at least my understanding so far, see my other post for details on the issue) so I would think it would be faster to do this to get a working site rather than trying to turn off and on each extension, especially when I have to do it manually (and I don't know how yet) as I can't access the backend.
If this will work, do I choose the database when I install or just install empty and then change what database it connects to or do i install empty and import the tables (and how)? Still have to figure out if I can make a clone of the database and not all the files as it takes hours.
Thanks for the help, and if I should have appended this to the other post I apologize, but I figured its a separate issue.
First, ensure you have backups of both the files and the database. Then make a local copy of your site where you will work later.
The infection may lie:
in the Joomla core files, with extra content (which is usually fairly easy to spot, for example an eval of a large base64-encoded variable);
in extra files (keep in mind that even images could contain malicious code), these would be usually triggered outside of Joomla for spamming or other nefarious purposes
in the database content.
Fix:
Apply a fresh Joomla update package over your site; you will only fix n.1 above. This may restore some functionality for the first hour of survival.
Analyse the logs, and try to figure out how they got in. You need to step up security as obviously what you have is not enough.
Install a fresh Joomla, add all extensions that your site uses, copy the images folder, then connect it to a copy of the compromised database. This will fix n.1 and 2 above (as you got rid of any extra files). This may survive until they figure out you fixed it; but if you haven't patched your security, they will hack into your site again. Keep a copy of this, and restore as needed as you proceed with the following step.
Export the db to sql format (mysqldump or phpmyadmin may come in handy), then search for any xss traces, php code, javascripts that may have been injected. Since a complete control could take days, and assuming the malicious code links elsewhere, look for strings such as "https://" and "http://"; escape / as \/ and \\\/ to account for json-encoded data as well.
Once the db is clean, your local copy is reasonably safe; update all extensions and Joomla, and use it to restore the website until you fix your security.
It might work, i mean cloning the DB as far as joomla version is the same. It won't break like that, but may fail if files for extensions are not found. This is somewhat wrong, the question is how many extensions you are using and how much cleansing you need.
On the other side you mention that the site should be 'live'. Just do everything on localhost, test, fix templates, etc. Then if you're sure you're done, use akeeba backup and deploy new version to your server without long delays.
Any kind of cleansing needs some start.
You can clean the site while live, depends on complexity.
Clean might be done offline and deployed.
Sometimes import/export custom routines are needed, so you have to make own tools for everything. It occurs with large data, like when people used to made mess inside images folder or something like that.
4 ...
It's pointless to make copies of DB. You install the same version of Joomla on your local server, then you install the same template, you copy styles etc.
Then you import data with your own tools or paid ones. Estimated time is from few hours to few days, it's just data :)
I hope someone have already faced an issue to verify that application shows correct data from database. I reviewd how groovy used SQL, but I have no idea where and how I should do that. I'm just starting to use gradle+Spock+Geb for testing application. I have a few files where I described a couple of pages from application, a couple of modules and a file with spock specification. Where and how I need to connect to Oracle DB, use SQL and compare result's data with application's ones?
P.S. I write everything in notepad++ and launch from command line writing 'gradlew firefoxTest'. Does exist any more comfortable way to work with gradle+spock+geb?
Thanks in advance.
Because there are no other answers, I wanted to provide a solution someone at my company thought of. This assumes you already have a project that uses some sort of JDBC. In our case it is JDBI.
The idea is to extend Classloader and then use that to directly access the data access object class via the JVM. That idea should work.
I have not tested it out because it doesn't completely fit our use-case. I'll admit that this does not completely apply to your use case, but technically you could just run the jar of an existing project, which can access the database.
I currently have a website i'm working on that I have taken over from another individual, I dumped his SQL file into my database and everything seems to be ok apart from one thing. Whenever I try to log in to the back end or if I try to go elsewhere, it will add an additional .co.uk to the address bar, making it like so:
From: www.domain.co.uk to www.domain.co.uk.co.uk
I've had a dig in the database but I really can't find anything and i've never faced this issue before, could anyone shed some light on this for me? Maybe just let me know where I could look within the database to identify the problem, many thanks.
Take a look at the .htaccess file in the root folder, which is hidden and may contain rewrite rules.
Also, I recommend you use this plugin for migrations:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-migrate-db/
I use it whenever I move from localhost to a live site and vice versa. It will also ensure your widgets are preserved, since doing a find replace will cause the object serialisation syntax WordPress uses to break.
After migrating, you need to visit Settings > Permalinks so the .htaccess file can be updated according to the new URL for rewrites.
i am trying to figure this out for a long time now, but so far no luck, maybe somebody can help me.
I have a 2.2.2 cakephp installed on my computer (localhost) and everything works perfectly. But now i want that same project to be online on remote server. I upload everything, set mysql path but i get a blank page when trying to access the site.
If i upload a fresh cakephp it works, but my project doesnt. The debug is set to default, think that should be 2? I also deleted files in cache/tmp, but still no errors or anything, just blank page.
Any info would be helpful, thank you.
I hate when that happens :). Usually it does if there is an error somewhere and you can't see it because the errors are turned off, so you should call phpinfo() and see if display_errors is on. Changing the debug mode doesn't work every time since display_errors is set from php.ini.
Unfortunately, if this is the problem and you don't have access to edit the php.ini file, you might need to ask the hosting provider to change it and restart the php service.
You can also try this: error_reporting(E_ALL)
I uploaded changes to my cakephp website and discovered that all actions for a particular controller returned a blank page. I discovered what the error was and was able to reproduce it with another controller.
The problem was that in the first line of my controller file I had a space before the opening php tag.
One space cost me hours.
Just uploading all files won't cut it. Make sure you work through this checklist:
First and foremost, check the error log file located under app/tmp/logs/error.log, this usually holds some very good pointers as to what is wrong.
Make sure you have uploaded the app/Config/database.php file with the proper details. Local installs usually have user root without password. Online servers (obviously) do not!
To that extent, also make sure you actually have a database with your hosting provider (either your host sent you the info or you need to create it yourself using their control panel).
Make sure you also uploaded all .htaccess files (the one under the root directory and /app and /app/webroot), some FTP programs don't show this "hidden" file by default.
If all else fails, contact your hosting provider for further support as they usually have access to more verbose server logs that can also hold clues.
The real problem was only the coding I used in notepad++. All my files were encoded with UTF-8, but they should have been UTF-8 without BOM. After I changed it to UTF-8 withot BOM, everything started to work perfectly.
I've looked around the Wordpress forums about this and didn't find anything so I thought I might try here.
If you have a staging/dev Wordpress setup used for testing new pluging and such, how do you go about migrating the data in the staging database back to the production database? Is there a "Wordpress best practices" way to do this, or am I limited to having to manually migrate tables from one database to the other?
I have a script that mysqldumps a copy of my production Wordpress DB, restores it over my test Wordpress install & then corrects all the "production" settings & urls in the test DB.
Both my production & test databases live on the same server, but you could change the mysqldump settings to dump from a remote mysql server & restore to a local server quite easily.
Here are my scripts:
overwrite_test.coach_db_with_coache_db.sh
#!/bin/bash
dbUser="co*******"
dbPassword="*****"
dbSource="coach_production"
dbDest="coach_test"
tmpDumpFile="/tmp/$dbSource.sql"
mysqldump --add-drop-table --extended-insert --user=$dbUser --password=$dbPassword --routines --result-file=$tmpDumpFile $dbSource
mysql --user=$dbUser --password=$dbPassword $dbDest < $tmpDumpFile
mysql --user=$dbUser --password=$dbPassword $dbDest < /AdminScripts/change_coach_to_test.coach.sql
change_coach_to_test.coach.sql
-- Change all db references from #oldDomain to #newDomain
SET #oldDomain = 'coach.co.za';
SET #newDomain = 'test.coach.co.za';
SET #testUsersPassword = 'password';
UPDATE `wp_1_options` SET `option_value` = REPLACE(`option_value`,#oldDomain,#newDomain) WHERE `option_name` IN ('siteurl','home','fileupload_url');
UPDATE `wp_1_posts` SET `post_content` = REPLACE(`post_content`,#oldDomain,#newDomain);
UPDATE `wp_1_posts` SET `guid` = REPLACE(`guid`,#oldDomain,#newDomain);
UPDATE `wp_blogs` SET `domain` = #newDomain WHERE `domain` = #oldDomain;
UPDATE `wp_users` SET `user_pass` = MD5( #testUsersPassword );
-- Only valid for main wpmu site
UPDATE `wp_site` SET `domain` = #newDomain WHERE `domain` = #oldDomain;
Perhaps you are just looking for the wrong thing. Wouldn't a backup plugin handle this with ease? I know they exist for all the big CMS packages...
The two methods would be using the export/import feature under tools or copying the database. I email myself a copy of my production database weekly using the WordPress Database Backup plugin.
The import feature can be problematic for moving a wordpress blog as you have to configure your php.ini file often because the default value of files you can upload on a hosted php implementation tends to be too small by default.
I wanted to pull the database from my production wordpress website into an offline development copy of it on my desktop machine so I could modify the site and test it with a
full set of the existing blog content and history.
This proved to be problematic, as simply making an offline backup of the database and importing it into the local development database did not work.
Overcoming these problems in moving data from the production to the dev database can probably be used to go the other way as well - so I think you can just use these guidelines for what you want to do as well - just start with dev data and move it to prod.
The problems here were:
the permalink designations for the
blog posts are all stored in the
database as they would be for the
online version, but my offline copy
isn't at the domain address, instead
it is in the localhost directory. So
when I launch the site locally,
although the css formatting and
images are all in place (the image
links being relative), the actual
blog posts don't show up.
many of the links throughout the
site link back out to the internet,
so if you try to navigate to
archives, or comments, or
categories, or the main posts, you
get sent back out to the internet
instead of staying in the database
on the local machine.
To make sure I was doing this right, I blew away the wordpress install I had on my local machine and restarted from scratch.
Once I had a clean, new wordpress install and brand new default freshly created local database for it, I opened up the database in phpMyAdmin and took a look at the wp_posts
table. Inside there, each record (in other words, each post) has a column titled "guid", which shows the location of that post. For example, the first one in a fresh, default
install contains this "guid" value:
http://localhost/wordpress/?p=1
If you look in the wp_posts table of your online version, you'll see instead in this location the url to your site online.
You can't just import the tables wholesale into your local install, because you'll be importing all these outside references. It will make your local version impossible to navigate locally.
So, I created a backup copy of my online site's database and saved it locally as a .sql file. I then opened that file in a text editor (I used notepad++, a great piece of free software, but you could use any text editor). Things I needed to look out for:
For whatever reason, the tables on my
online site aren't just, for example,
"wp_posts" - they are
"wp_something_posts"... there are
some extra letters in there in the
table names.
Any references to http://... that contain my online url instead of localhost/wordpress
To keep it simple let's just do only the posts. In the backup copy of the .sql you've made of your online database, find the beginning of the wp_posts table. It will look something like this:
--
-- Table structure for table `wp_posts`
--
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `wp_posts`;
CREATE TABLE `wp_posts` (
...and so on. Highlight everything above that up to just below the comment marking the beginning of the database at the top of the file (it will say -- Database: 'your database name') and delete it. Then go to the end of your wp_posts table, and delete everything after then end of it down to the bottom of the file. Now your file only contains your posts, and nothing else.
Save this as a separate document. Call it posts.sql or something like that.
Now, in this posts.sql file, you need to do two find/replaces actions.
Find every instance of the name of
the table wp_something_posts and
replace it with wp_posts. You only
need to do this if your backup copy
of your online database doesn't
match your clean local install as
far as the table names go. You want
whatever the table name is in this
file to match what your locally
installed wordpress database has as
this table name. If you don't make
these names match, you are just
going to end up importing the posts
into a new, differently named table,
which will be of no use to you at
all.
Find every instance of http://...
(replace the elipsis with your url)
and replace it with
http://localhost/wordpress (or
whatever the local url to your dev
version of the site is)
Now save this file again, to make sure you've got these changes set.
Now that you've done that, use phpMyAdmin to get into the wordpress database on your local machine, select the "import" tab and navigate the selector to the posts.sql file you just made, and then import it. This will pull all the data in that file into your local wp_posts table.
When that finishes, browse your local wordpress site. You'll see all your posts in there now. Hooray!
You may need to do something similar for a few other tables if you want to bring in your comments, tags, categories, and static pages you've created, etc.
I realize this is a convoluted process. There is probably a tool out there somewhere that makes this activity easier, and if someone knows of one I'd love to find out about it. If someone knows of a better way to do this manually than what I've described, I'd love to know that as well!
Until then, this is the way I figured out how to do it. Hopefully it helps get you going in the right direction.
You need to handle the serialized objects. Here is a client side HTML5 utility to handle it. Because it is all javascript, it's quite fast.
The alternative would be hooking a bash script into your deployment. So once the site is deployed, the db is backed up and deserialized with the new domain.
This about sums up the problems with the wordpress core architecture... but I wrote a plugin that solves the problems with domain names and absolute urls being stored in the database:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/root-relative-urls/
This will solve the problems outlined by #oddbill. Though don't worry too much about the url being in the GUID column as that field is never used for link generation.
#markratledge provides a couple links to some lengthy documents that basically say this:
//export
mysqldump -u[username] -p[password] [database] > backup.sql
//import
mysql -u[username] -p[password] [database] < backup.sql
You'll want to exclude the comments/comments_meta tables if you push to production from staging so you don't lose all of your comments and trackbacks (#DavidLaing's approach will wipe those out.) And this assumes you only make content changes in your staging environment. If you want to make changes in production and your staging environment, you'll need to write scripts that sync the data instead of wholesale overwrite it... good luck on that task, may I suggest adding create & modified timestamp columns before you invest too much time with the current schema.
And finally, #RussellStuever's approach is suitable in most circumstances, just be sure to know when you are browsing your host mapped site versus your production site. And really be sure about it, because some browsers cache dns lookups for days until you physically close them and start a new process. At which point switching hosts may take some time, and switching frequently may get frustrating. And if you need to test with an iPhone, you'll need to publish the site live first, or use a good router that can remap outbound internet requests to local servers because you cannot modify hosts files on most mobile devices.
My plugin lets you develop and test from http://localhost/ or http://staging.server.local/ or http://www.production.com without any of the usual pitfalls. And then to migrate data, it's as simple as exporting and importing the data, no search & replace step or database setting tweaks necessary.
And don't rely on the import/export tool, it doesn't capture everything in typical wordpress installations, and still requires a needless search & replace step.