Migration with clean install? Does this process make sense?

  • Hi,

    I’m moving servers and I’d like to do a clean install, but still have everything in tact, if that makes sense.

    Is my thought process correct with this? Should I have any issues or am I forgetting anything?

    1. Update WP to latest version
    2. Update plugins to latest versions
    2. mysqldump database
    3. Install latest WP version on new server
    4. Install all the plugins that were used before
    5. Install theme
    6. Import database to completely replace ‘clean’ DB
    7. Import other content

    My concern stems from what I think was a hack/vulnerability, and I’m hesitant about just moving all the old files over.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • You cannot just copy the database because WP embed ‘serialized’ URLs and paths that will be different on each server.

    You can use the WP Migrate DB plugin to make the changes, or use a utility like Search and Replace Tool for WordPress Database.

    Here is an article with the steps I use to migrate (copy) a site: https://wordpress.mcdspot.com/2012/08/22/migrating-a-wordpress-site-step-by-step/

    You could just skip the steps that copy the files.

    However, many hacks will also place malicious code in the database, so copying it may just allow the hacker back in.

    Thread Starter noone1

    (@noone1)

    Hmmm, I figured that since my domain and urls were the same, it wouldn’t be an issue.

    Anyway, I’ve since solved my problem. I did a manual install and manual creation of the database rather than use the application installed in Plesk.

    I then deleted the content tables like posts, terms, users, comments etc. I used mysqldump to just dump those tables from the previous blog and then imported them to the fresh install.

    This seemed to work. I had to reconfigure settings and the theme, but I just went through each setting and compared it to the old site, so it wasn’t a big deal.

    Glad you got it to work.

    For future information, even though the URL and domain are the same, there may be paths stored that will differ from one host to another. For example, NextGEN Gallery stores a path in ngg_options.

    On GoDaddy, paths look similar to this: /home/content/26/8340555/html/mydomain.com

    And on HostGator, they look like this: /home/clientprefix/public_html

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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