Is it possible to move a Joomla website from one host to another without complication

[Greg]

I know very little about Joomla, never used the software, have read the 1st half of a book about it, and I know Ariotek support it.

As the title says, can the site be moved or does it have to be rebuilt, it has a shopping cart but not much else other than the usual text and pictures. until I get the job of revamping the website I would rather not mention the domain name.

I am prepared to pay someone to do the move if the price is right, a quick response on this is necessary

Any help will be much appreciated

Regards Greg

[Colin]

Should be a simple process to move accross especially if its on a Cpanel server, even if not we have customers who have moved sites before without issue.

[Trev]

Yes, it is possible. I've done it myself before the using the hairshirt method on a 1.0.x based site. Moved it do a different domain name (and directory). The method I used wasn't probably the approved way, but it worked.

Basically I wanted a copy of a live site to test some layout/content ideas on so I set up a bare install on the test site and when I was satisfied it was working I took a copy of the joomla directory from my live site and used it to completely overwrite all the equivalent files on the test site (except the config file with the database settings for the test site). Once satisfied that the look etc was ok (note extensions copied over probably wouldn't work/appear at this point as they'd need the relevant database entries to be present as well as the files). I then used phpMyAdmin to take a dump of the database on my live site, opened it in notepad and amended the site details in the first few lines to correspond with my test site. Once satisfied with the changes I used PMA to upload the database overwriting the base one in my test install.

That was a few years ago though and for someone less familiar with Joomla a safer bet would probably be to use one of the add-ons freely available in the Joomla Extensions Directory.

Assuming you're using the 1.5 version this extension might do what you need. I haven't tried it myself as I haven't needed to move a site recently, but it has a lot of positive comments and votes to recommend it. As the base version is free you can give it a try and see if it does all you need.

The extension also has it's own website with documentation, forums etc. at this link.

[Trev]

If the cart is the popular virtuemart one I believe this holds a fixed url in it's config file which may need manually editing.

[Greg]

Hello Trev

Thanks for your detailed reply, looks a bit scary. The description of Akeeba Backup appears much friendlier. If I have interpretative the description correctly doing a transfer negates the nessity to install Joomla before hand. Is that correct?

BTW, the site uses WorlPlay shopping cart. Does that cause any problems?

[Trev]

Hi Greg

As I said, I haven't used it myself, but from reading a bit of the documentation, it appears that it'd do it all for you including setting up Joomla on the new site - with a couple of minor caveats.

1) It appears you'd need to have an empty database already created with a user and password.
2) It appears you'd need to have a ftp account and password configured for it to use during setup

Neither should present problems to you in setting up via cPanel, though you may need to check whether the settings you enter in the backup settings panel would be the full url or "localhost". This may be a case of trial and error.

If installing in a subdirectory I'd personally set up an ftp account for the purpose limited to that subdirectory rather than using the root ftp account. But then, I'm a bit paranoid. I've also not been hacked so far.

You could easily get some practice by setting up a Joomla install using fantastico in a subdirectory of your webspace, typing an article adding a few graphics, and perhaps a shopping cart. Then use the backup add-on to move it to another subdirectory and see how you get on, that way you'd have gotten the settings sorted so that when you need to do it in anger it'd be quick and easy.

Of course if it's a legacy site i.e. 1.0.x you may need a different extension. So it'd be best to try and find out what version of Joomla it's currently running, what cart it's using, etc so you can do your research and get the answers before you need them for moving it.

If you will be looking after this site and it has a shopping facility you would be well advised to check out the security tips here as any site taking money will be at more risk from hackers, both through it being profitable for them and through the loss of trust and reputation (and therefore business) for your clients company.

Hope this helps

[ale1981]

Never done it myself but cant see it would be much of a problem if you have access to PHPMyAdmin and did a dump of the database and copied the files over. Once copied, edit the config file and then the database config tables?

Experiment that way first before doing it using an extension.

**REMEMBER TO TAKE A BACKUP OF EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU START** !!