Blog Loom

The Big Download

Going by the words of most people when I did searches, it’s good to backup the old site using cPanel>Backup>Download a home directory Backup.

I actually attempted many times without real success. That was done using ADSL line and wireless broadband but to no avail. Every download file ended up broken when unzipped. Imagine spending 4-5 hrs or more each time and be disappointed at the end.

I abandoned that method and fell back to plain old method using FTP. Picked a group of folders and files at a time and downloading it. It worked better this way albeit a little slower and messy.

New Pretty Face

First thing very noticeable was the cPanel interface. It is Version 11 against 10 in the old hosting. Every option is grouped under its own category so it saves you from hunting around to find the right icon as in the past. The layout is more logically organized and it takes very little time to get familiar.

One of the first thing I did was to create an add-on domain for the first site to be transferred and here for the first time I see explanation about add-on and parked domains. I’ve been guessing the true meaning of these two animals for a good two years, silly me.

The only thing missing is the auto creation of FTP account and password. In cPanel 10, that is done automatically when add-on domain is created while Version 11 lets you create a FTP user and password in a separate process. Now I see that you may not need an FTP account for each and every domain you have. You could just use the primary FTP access for every add-on domain there is.

Wait, Don’t Move Your Primary Domain Yet

You may have more than one domain on a hosting server and one of those is the primary one. Your account is actually linked to this domain and many things depend on it such as sub-domains, FTP accounts, emails etc.

I made a mistake of trying to move the primary domain first to the new server. I went and changed the DNS of my primary domain and suddenly all my access to cPanel, FTP and Emails were down. It took me a while plus a few contacts back and forth to the hosting provider to get the problem spotted.

It also took a few hours for the DNS to revert back to the original so I ended up using IP address to access cPanel and the website. Fortunately the domain was not used for my other more important sites.

So never forget to remember – keep the primary domain at the old server until last.

WordPress Workout

Make sure you change the DNS setting at the domain registrar to point to the new server for the domain you intend to work on. Do this early as it will take up to 24 hrs or more to complete the propagation. In the meantime, you may get intermittent results.

Now armed with FTP access, a set of WordPress codes from a chosen domain was uploaded to the new server. I had to remove some huge auto-backup files that was residing on the old server to reduce upload time. They got downloaded to my PC as I chose the whole folder during downloading time.

Then using cPanel>mySQL a new database was created.

Next is to Import old database into the new one using cPanel>phpMyAdmin>Databases>”select database”>Import.

Don’t forget to check wp-config.php as parameters might have changed. If necessary upload a new one or edit the one on the server.

Time for a little prayer now. Launch the browser and enter the URL and…

The site should launch! That’s if you’re very lucky. Most of the times there’s something to tweak such as .htaccess file or something.

Well, my WordPress site is again up and running, on a new server. So there will be many more waiting to be transferred but things started to get much easier now that the first test has passed. Just rinse and repeat.

What a relief!

See my next post for how I moved Drupal-based sites to the new server too.{openx:16}