changing hosts

[deansyme]

hi, i have moved my site to a new host, but my os commerse is still at the old one, how can i change it to my new one without losing everything or starting again...is it easy?....sorry new to all this, and appreciate all your help

 

Thanks dean

[Guest]

Some hosts , such as occ hosting will do it for free, Ralph

[daknoodle]

Theoretically you can simply take the files and copy them to your new host but you will have to change the configuration files to the information for the database on your new host. You will also need to copy the database from the old host and put it on the new.

 

Good Luck!

 

Doug

[deansyme]

thanks...i seem to have it moved ok, but now when i try to access it i get this warning message... Server Requirement Error: register_globals is disabled in your PHP configuration. This can be enabled in your php.ini configuration file or in the .htaccess file in your catalog directory. and i cant find the file it means, or what to do

Dean

[daknoodle]

Thats something you need to take up with your host. Either see if they will give you access to the php.ini file or see if they will allow register_globals.

 

If they do not allow it then there is a contrib to do without.

[deansyme]

Thats something you need to take up with your host. Either see if they will give you access to the php.ini file or see if they will allow register_globals.

 

If they do not allow it then there is a contrib to do without.

 

 

Thanks, i checked out 2 of the contibs but one said about security issues and that my store WILL be hacked sumday...surley there must be away round this

 

Deano

[evalguy]

Also switched hosts today. Here's my procedure, but please re-check just in case I missed something...

 

Do this *before* giving up the old host (or changing the domain name pointers)...

- Use an FTP client (such as WS-FTP) and log into the old host.

- Go into the admin tool and do a database backup. It will save the file as a '....sql' file under 'catalog/admin/backups/'

- Download the whole directory structure to a folder on your hard-drive. You can do the 'catalog' folder, but I did the whole 'www' folder since I have other things there.

[ BTW, I do this periodically anyway, just to make sure I have a full backup in case the host has some crash, etc. ]

- Here, I also used phpMyAdmin to get a quick snapshot of the database -- how many tables, number of rows in each, etc. Just in case.

 

Now, I got a new host, and temporarily added a single line to the 'HOSTS' file on my PC, such as...

123.45.67.89 www.mydomainname.com

(this tells my local machine to go to the new host whenever my machine references this domain name, rather than going to the server that the internet's DNS servers tell it to).

 

- You can also change over the domain pointers at this time. FWIW, I have my domains registered elsewhere (independent of the hosts).

- Now, using the control panel at the new host, I created a new base osCommerce installation.

- Here I also created my SSL certificate and installed that.

- Here, I had the same register_globals problem you did. I added the line to .htaccess and added the php.ini file, both in 2 locations -- under 'catalog' and under 'catalog/admin'. Your host may have a different procedure, so check with them. Also, there are a lot of

- Verify that osCommerce works.

- FTP into the new host.

- Using the FTP tool, I renamed the php.ini and .htaccess files I just modified, to something such as '.htaccess-ORIG' etc.

- I also renamed my 'catalog/includes/configure.php' file.

- Now, I uploaded the whole directory structure (that I had just downloaded on my PC) to the new host.

- I then deleted the deleted the old .htaccess and configure.php files on the new host (only the ones in the same directory as the ones I modified!!!).

- I then renamed the '....-ORIG' files that I previously renamed, back to their original filenames (removing the '-ORIG' parts).

- I quickly tested that I could access the site from a browser.

- Then I deleted the old products.

- And (almost) finally, I restored the database. Rather than do this from the admin tool, I used phpMyAdmin.

- I again used phpMyAdmin, to verify a database snapshot against the previous database snapshot.

- Also, I checked configure.php manually to ensure that all looks kosher for the new host.

- Test, test, test.

- After this, I manually deleted the default manufacturer's-image folders on the new host using the FTP application (the ones called 'Microsoft', 'Sierra', 'Matrox', etc).

- Test.

 

- If you haven't transferred your domain pointers yet, you can do so now. Note that it can take up to 2 days to propagate around the world. I usually check for a couple days using my PC (after removing the entry I previously added to the 'HOSTS' file) and using sites such as www.dnsstuff.com .

 

If you follow this, all *should* be good. Depending on your mods etc, there may be some other things you need to do, so review my steps carefully *before* doing this. Use at your own risk.

 

- Test, test, test!

 

Once you've verified it all works and has the performance level you want, you can call up your old host and tell them off :angry: :-"

 

-Neil.