[wp-hackers] Tips for moving a Wordpress install

[Jeremy Clarke]

Most of what I wanted to say has been said but I'll reiterate a few
key points because this thread is very useful for us all:

 * Dev/Stage/Live is my preferred staging layout. You work locally on
Dev to create the site. You push it to a Stage on your server, this
serves to both test the setup on the server (might not be the same as
your local server) and to test your migration process at least once
before you make it live. You then push the changes to live. Stage
should always match Live unless you are in the process of migration.
If anything happens to Live (files hacked etc) then everything but the
uploads can be replaced from Stage.

* Controlling the URL settings for the various versions is dead easy
using wp-config.php, just add these definitions and you will be able
to use backups of your live database on Dev and Stage with almost no
problems (you might still be pulling the media files from the actual
server but this rarely impedes your new development since they load
fine as long as you are online).

  define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://example.com/wordpress');
  define('WP_HOME', 'http://example.com/wordpress');

--
Jeremy Clarke | http://jeremyclarke.org
Code and Design | http://globalvoicesonline.org