COAP:COAP-3110/week6

Week 6 learning goals

• Plugin installation and management (continued)
• Migrating from a development server to a hosting company
• A first glance at the REST protocol

Monday

Plugin installation continued.

Wednesday

Web hosting providers

Free hosting exists (see below). Prices for low cost hosting start around 3 Euros / month, but you have to add fees for a domain name to that if you want your own.

Well-known free (read the fine print)

• Host-ed (free, without domain name)
• AwardSpace (free, without domain name)
• 000webhost (free, without domain name). Test site used by the instructor: http://coap3110.comuf.com/

You can search the web for alternatives, e.g. read TechRadar, but be careful. Cross-check information about a provider.

Well-known cheap, HostGator is best according to PC Mag

• HostPapa (3 Euros/month)
• GoDaddy ($4-5 / month)
• Hostgator (3.5$ / month), also cheap dedicated hosting for $80/month

Recommended local (Geneva, Switzerland)

• Infomaniak (10 CHF / month). Probably one of the best in that range (quality/speed)
• HostPoint (10CHF/month, 30 day trial)

Domain name registration

• Most hosting companies will provide that service
• You many check if they are accredited with ICANN (i.e. first-level registrars)

Moving a platform from a local server to a hosting organization

• Moving a Wordpress from a local server to an other target is fairly easy most of the time. However, many things can go wrong ...

Executive summary:

• Create a new database and database user on the target site.
• Move all PHP files (or install a new system)
• Move the database files (dump SQL locally and import on the target)
• Repair the configuration file (database name, database user, etc.)

Local preparation

In order to migrate you will have to:

• copy all the WordPress files using an FTP or SFTP client or a WebClient (depending on the hosting company)
• dump the whole database to a *.sql file, e.g. w.sql
• Create a copy of the wp-config.php file and edit some settings (see below)

On the new host

Frequently, the hosting company will not let you create random database names since a same MySQL server is shared with many many users. You will have to use a specific tool from the control panel to create databases and database users.

(1) Create a new database

• Write down its full name, database user name, database user password, machine name

(2) On the local host (again):

• Create a backup copy of wp-config.php, e.g. wp-config.local.php
• Create a new copy of wp-config.php, e.g. wp-config.new.php
• Edit config.new.php and configure it with the parameters for the new host.

(3) Import the w.sql database file, using PhPMyAdmin or another client

(4) Copy the local wp-config.new.php file to the target site and rename it to wp-config.php

Example taken from 000webhost.com:

as you can see the hosting organization may force you to adopt some prefix, i.e. the a3966289 would represent your user id.

define('DB_NAME', 'a3966289_w');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'a3966289_user');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'XXXXXXXX');

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'mysql5.000webhost.com');

Trouble

• You provide may use an old mysql version that does not support the extend utf8mb4 caracter set. Open the *.sql file in a text editor and replace utf8mb4 by utf8. If that is the case, you also need to make change in wp-config.php.