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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:00:40 +1200

A final entry to update this thread. I am based in New Zealand, so web host info is local to NZ.

My website is finally working on the net, but moving it there has been a very frustrating exercise compared to creating it. Many hours were spent re-installing SS on the webhost, and then trying to upload the database. Every possible mistake was made, and in the end I gave up on Net24 and turned to Easyserve a recommended host in NZ on the SS website.

This is not to say that Net24 was the problem. They could have been OK if I had known what I was doing, it just became embarrassing asking for help which I could tell they felt I should have allready known about.

Nick from Easyserve has been very helpful, actually installing SS, and my database that I sent to him by e-mail in the end, plus fixing other nuisance problems. I'm disappointed however that I couldn't do this myself in the end. I would like to recommend him for Kiwis.

I know a live website installation tutorial is coming, and this is essential for those of us who just want to get in a car to drive from A to B, without having to get out along the way to try and fix various parts of it as we travel. My job is at B, not in doing the process of making A get to B.

Willr is doing the job and I'm sure it will help us simple users. Right now until it comes out I would not recommend going further unless you have quite a lot of internet knowledge and confidence.

Problems have occurred in four areas:

Using FTP to transfer your files to the live site, what and where
Installing Silverstripe on the Web host, what to put in the installation criteria to make it work.
Transferring your database(the personal stuff you added to the theme), I failed on that one!
Watch out for cache problems!

Many thanks to Willr for his assistance by e-mail advice.

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:25:07 +1200

Offer most gratefully accepted. It must be almost there.

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

willr — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:47:18 +1200

carola, sounds like you are having a few unlucky issues, Rather then debug this on the forum I can provide faster results (if you want) if you wouldnt mind emailing me your server details to will[at]silverstripe[dot]com. I can then hopefully sort things out for you!

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:57:56 +1200

Last post for the night. I am pretty tired with this after two days

I have finally installed silverstripe on my webserver but it does not work completely. I used the file management software on the webserver to open install.php to run the installer. Before this with the same management software I created a database mysite, with password and username Those items when installed got me the 4 green lights in the mysql part of the installation

1) xxxx.co.nz with my domain name worked
2) username carol accepted
3) password xxxx accepted
4) mysite database accepted

Put in my e-mail address, password, name etc in the admin
Installed success!!!! but no !!! although your initial home webpage comes up only the developer documentation and tutorial pages load, plus the internal contact us link.

about us goes to a blank page, and the cms leads to a blank page halted on xxxx.co.nz/ss...2.2/security/login

I have had several goes with this install because I note the install php and other files have not disappeared after installations which I think they should have done using the delete the files option after installation.? I have been selecting the option to overwrite the mysite config, and the htaccess file which I am offered when it says it is SS is allready installed. Lots of flushing of course just in case. Maybe the problem is in the admin part of the installation. I have no clue

Every now and then I have a peek at my Website on own computer just to imagine how nice it would be! So far for various reasons which I wont go into I have ftp silverstripe three times, and deleted it twice from the webserver today.

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

willr — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:18:44 +1200

Now I am green for three out of four on the Mysql database details, just missing the fact that the database in fact does not exist.

You said tho in the first paragraph you created a database name with a user and a password. Doesnt that database name you created work? Also some times your host will append something to the database name - as they are likely to have hundreds of people all on the server! Eg my NZ webhost (Nucleus) prepends my username to any database I create so even if in there site manager I create a MyDatabaseName I actually use MyUserName_MyDatabaseName to connect to it.

Make sure your host doesnt do anything like that - usually they should have instructions when you create a database as to how to connect to it

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:17:41 +1200

Ok I'm grinding forwards. Using the management software on the webhost I created a database, ie made up a name, because there wasnt one. gave myself a username and password, and then returned to the install page for Silverstripe.

Now I am green for three out of four on the Mysql database details, just missing the fact that the database in fact does not exist.

Come on............................ If I keep going like this, like that monkey, I will eventually compose Beethovens fifth symphony, but will I go mad first?

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:08:46 +1200

Following on from my last post.

I am now looking at the installation page for Silverstripe on my Webserver, just like the one that appeared on my own computer originally. Unfortunately I'm stuck in the installation part of Silverstripe concerning the MySQl Database details

mySQL server will accept xxxx.co.nz my server address, or localhost, but not the next parameters,

mySql username and password don't work despite using every option relating to usernames and passwords supplied to me by the Webhosts Net24. I don't recall anybody asking or giving me anything to do with mySQL!

Finally the default mySQL database doesn't exist, and any username I can think of does not have any create database rights. Needless to say I flushed everything in sight to no avail

Down the page everything is green except Website configuration which says it cant tell what webserver I am running ie Apache. I believe that this host has Apache ASP

This is beginning to look serious. Maybe I will just press the install button anyway and hope for the best, or maybe it is just not going to install on this host, and I should scrap the idea and try and get my money back and my domain name transferred.

Any final suggestions from this forum would be most gratefully received. I hope there is a simple solution which is opaque but obvious?

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:25:53 +1200

JJB
It must seem easy to the experts, both here and those who answer the support phones on your host site. I am struggling to get this Website to move, and am trying to follow the instructions of Willr.

I can't recommend Net 24 yet because all I have done is pay for web hosting, but not proved that I can make it work for me yet. They appear not to have heard about Silverstripe, or WAMP. I signed up for their open source package $14.95 per month. Theoretically they fit the requirements of SS because they run Apache, PHP, and MySQL. The SS website has some recommended Web hosts listed which have run their software successfully, that could be a good option to investigate

If I ever get my Website to show on the net then I intend to offer an idiots start to finish summary of the steps needed from my experience of how it happened. It could never be a tutorial because I don't know anything! Just a paint by numbers guide from the bottom up and not the top down.

WillR
Now I am going to ask a cringing follow up question. (Having uploaded Silverstripe to my root directory on my Webhost, how do "I run through the installation setup there? " That is not obvious either. I will also contact Net 24 about this, they are beginning to sound a little peeved with me.

Thanks again for assistance. I cant give up yet!

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

JJB — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:29:57 +1200

As another novice, I lilke your approach, but the above example worries me a little. Do you have huidance about what I'm looking for when I approach an ISP? (You might even have some suggestions by I appreciate you miaght want to be provider neutral). As a first foray into opensource, I don't want to be wasting my time byb not asking the right questions up front...

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

willr — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:27:27 +1200

The tutorial is something defiantly on our todo list or if someone from the community would like to document their process that too would be good!

The files / folders you FTP are completely seperate from the DB. Think of them as independent parts - the only way you need to link the DB and the files is by setting where the database is in the mysite/_config.php file.

As to what you need to copy to the live site, you need to copy everything from your local to the live webserver. Every single folder and every file. Though what I normally do myself is rather then copy the whole project directory I download a new 'fresh' copy of SilverStripe, upload this to the webserver (the whole thing) then run through the installer - this makes sure that the webserver supports SilverStripe.

Make sure that installs correctly and you should have the default theme/ pages etc. Ok so you have SilverStripe running on the live server. Next task is the new theme - so FTP the themes/yourthemename folder to the same place on the live server and change the mysite/_config.php file to point to the theme (just like you did on your local copy).

Now ?flush=1 the site and make sure that your new theme works!. So you should have a working copy of SS running with your theme on the live server. You mentioned that you didnt touch any of the PHP code - just the theme stuff so now we just need to copy across the database via PHPMyadmin - same process as before - export on your local, open up the live sites phpmyadmin and open up the database you installed SilverStripe on the live site with and import your file.

Now revisit your site and see if that worked!.

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:06:38 +1200

Willr thanks for your continuing advice, and patience. As you say it seems very complex, I am still trying to move stuff.

The .sql database did finally get transferrred to Net24, once a pop up was disabled to allow their phpmyadmin to appear and perform the import.

Their instructions are to FTP all my folder structures and files , into a folder on their site called httpdocs, overwriting all that was contained within. This unfortunately has not worked so far.

Can I clarify exactly what directory structure has to be transferred.
As I mentioned Mysite on my computer contained only the config.php which I adjusted to refer to the natureweb4 theme (as per PCW tutorial). All my adaptions of this theme were done to the css, images, and templates folders in the Natureweb4 folder in the themes folder, mysite being empty

To export the .sql database, you have to use the ss_mysite option. I copied the css, images, + templates folders from the natureweb4 folder in themes into the equivalent empty folders on mysite, to enable an export. That seemed to be the place they should go!

I didn't copy the theme folder before export, because the themes folder seems to be part of the silverstripe software, and was not part of mysite. Should it have been attached in some way to the mysite folder and be part of the export sql. ? If so how?

Similarly the assets folder you mentioned is part of silverstripe and not mysite.

It is hard for a simple user to know exactly what structures needs to be sent by FTP to allow a successful reproduction of the site which was so easy to see when it was within Silverstripe CMS and on the web via silverstripe.

Once again I am grateful for any help. I wonder is Silverstripe could produce a tutorial about moving things, even though this is not your core business. It would encourage more people to have a go with opensource, if this crucial final part of the process was covered somehow.

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

willr — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:02:36 +1200

Moving a site is a complicated process the first couple of times! But basically the phpmyadmin export was just for the site data - eg pages you have created etc, It does not copy the themes, code you have written or anyother project stuff. Just the pages and content you see in the CMS.

Ontop of exporting and importing that database file you will need to copy your Files (usually the mysite/code/ folder and the themes/ folder) and any other modules, widget folders via FTP to the relevant folders on your live web server

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:36:05 +1200

Thanks again willr.
I got as far as creating the copy of my data base. I am using the natureweb4theme and have adjusted the theme with new images etc within the natureweb4 directories. I assumed that all the .php files in the natureweb4 theme needed to be copied to the equivalent empty directories in mysite to get this to work because my_site is the only choice given in PHPMyadmin for database export

Next I phoned Net24 and spoke to support. They do support php, and said they know about PHPMyAdmin, (but I cannot see it on their website). They use something called PLESK Server Administrator. I have been told that PHPMyAdmin will only transfer the database but the files would still have to be transferred by FTP. They seemed very determined about that, and suggested I talk to my Website Creator (but that is me technically speaking!) The Plesk administration software they use imports databases of type mySQL (which should be OK)

Does PHPMyadmin avoid using FTP?

At the moment I have a simple working website perfect for my needs as viewed through Silverstripe. SO NEAR YET SO FAR. I guess I could
I have got to thank you for again for your help in this.When you release something like Silverstripe to the masses via a computer magazine, you are going to attract the fiddlers who like to have a go themselves. Sorry about that!

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

willr — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:27:44 +1200

right so what you can do is go to localhost/phpmyadmin on your local server, select your database on the left hand side from the list and then hit the Export Tab on the top right then select the Save As File down the bottom and hit enter - this will save a copy of your database to your computer.

Now you have to import it again on the live site - so go to PHPMyadmin on your live webserver (most hosts will have this) and select the database for your live site. Then in that database hit the Import tab on the top right handside and select the file you made from step 1 on your computer.

This will import the information from the exported file to the live database. All going well that should work! All you would need to do is if you had any uploaded files you will need to copy the contents of the assets folder on your local to the assets folder on the live site

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:13:08 +1200

Thanks willr, Yes I am using WAMP via the PCW disc

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Re: Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

willr — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:00:31 +1200

if you want to copy pages and content you have entered on your localcopy to the live webserver you will have to export the Database of your local to the live site - you will need to use a tool like phpMyadmin to export / import the db.

What have you used for you local website? WAMP?

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Moving webpages to a commercial hosting website

carola — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:20:55 +1200

As a complete beginner, I have adapted the natureweb4 theme a little, and produced webpages to upload to a hosting site. My webpages are all contained within the Natureweb directories, the config php file in Mysite refers to that theme, all other directories in Mysite are untouched. (if that is important?)

I have arranged for Website hosting to be done by Net24, (who support the open source software used by Silverstripe) with my new Website name. Their instructions for sending my Webpages involve Primary DNS Hostname, Slave DNS Hostname and upload instructions for uploading FTP files etc I can see an empty site page ready waiting for my webpages, but have no idea how to move them there with FTP. I cant find any documentation or method in Siverstripe CMS to publishing my new pages on the internet at the new site. At the moment all my pages come under silverstripe.com.

I am sure this must be simple knowledge for most people here, but I would be most grateful for any advice

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