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copying whole site to local test machine

I want to do a dry run on the multi-db plugin with my site so I have copied the database and files to a local linux machine running as a webserver.

I have edited the hosts file to point the domain to local, is there anything else I need to do to have a copy of my site on a local webserver?

(I had the main blog working on local using a diff domain name by editing the wp_blogs and other tables to point to the new domain name but I wont be able to do that with a full backup of the db (I think))

anyone done this?

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:24:12
  • fiddyp
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I managed to get the blog to load after putting everything on a ubuntu machine running apache and editing occurences of the domain name and path in the database I imported to one I have configured to point to 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts

    I put the wpmu 2.8.2 zip file in the folder that serves the default html pages and added mu.wordpress.org to my hosts file and pointed it to 127.0.0.1 and did the upgrade automatically link to see if it worked (after removing network cable, just in case!) and it went through fine, said it upgraded ok and then when I clicked to go to dashboard, it prompted me to log in

    If I put the details in, it just goes back to the log in screen with empty username password fields.

    it doesn’t show a password error (I tried with a wrong one and it showed the normal error) so maybe it’s cookie related? or is the login problem something that someone else has experienced after upgrading to 2.8.2?

    (I needed to chmod a few files in wp-includes/pomo/ to get the page loaded after first upgrade)

    anyone notice a similar log in problem after upgrading to 2.8.2 or moving server?

  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    If I put the details in, it just goes back to the log in screen with empty username password fields.

    Try clearing cookies.

    Honestly though, I really don’t recommend using the automatic upgrade feature. We don’t use it and we urge our clients not to use it.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • fiddyp
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I used the 2.7.1 backup I had and everything worked again.

    I tried the manual update method by overwriting the existing files with the ones in the zip and now I get just a blank white screen.

    I removed all plugins to see if that made a difference. nope

    set blog to use default theme, no joy.

    could the white screen be a folder or file permissions problem?

  • fiddyp
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    turns out it was a folders permission thing.

    went back and did autoupgrade and then chmodded wp-includes and children to 755 and all worked again!

    hope it goes ok with the real installation :slight_smile:

    thanks for your help everyone.

  • fiddyp
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    i did a test run to convert the existing install to be able to use svn and it was scary to say the least! all that copying across files and using diff

    think I’ll do a full backup and then try the auto update to see if it plays nice.

  • Steve Atty
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I think the only problem with editing the Database is that once it gets to any size it starts getting almost impossible to edit it.

    What I’ve done when I’ve been testing is I’ve taken a spare linux box and installed WPMU on it. Then I’ve installed dnsmasq and set it so it supports the wildcard domain just for that domain and forwards other requests to your normal DNS servers

    Then on your client PC you tell it to use the spare box as its DNS server.

    The big advantage here is that you don’t need to edit your sql dump files.

    The down side is that, unless you change your DNS setting back, you can’t access the live site.