COAP:COAP-3110/week6

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Week 6 learning goals

  • Migrating from a development server to a hosting company
  • 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)

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

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 *.zip file, e.g. w.zip
  • 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) Create a new wp-config.php file (but do not erase the old version yet)

  • 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.zip file, using PhPMyAdmin or another client

(4) Copy the wp-config.new.php file 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.