Posted by Art55 on July 12, 2010 at 8:52pm
I'm working with two stacks - Acquia on my desktop and XAMPP on my laptop. (And I'll be using LAMP at Modwest, my hosting service.)
My understanding is I should be able to move a completed SITE back and forth between these, but it is my responsibility to make sure the needed MODULES are in place across all of the installations. Is this correct?
That is, If I build my site in Acquia using CKK and ImageMagik, then move it to XAMPP I have to install CCK and ImageMagik on XAMPP (that is, I can't just grab the drupal directory from ACQUIA and move it to XAMPP and get all my installed modules automatically.)
Can anyone confirm or correct this?
Comments
It's all in the directory
Art,
If your Drupal installation is in the /drupal directory (for example), you'll just copy that entire directory to the new hosting location. You'll need to edit /drupal/sites/default/settings.php and import the database from your development installation, of course.
Here are a couple of links which may be helpful:
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Migration woes
Looks like there can be a few surprises moving sites...
Thanks for the tips.
www.aheld.com
www.HikersCameraBelt.com
Permissions
I've run into the biggest issues with file permissions when doing a site transfer. Most of the time, the transfer is relatively painless. Happy to help if you run into trouble.
Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Defining terms, and (hopefully) clarifying!
This is a great question, Art.
As is often the case, terminology can be a little confusing, so at the risk of being pedantic let me define some terms.
The important point is the separation between the stack of enabling software (Apache, MySQL, & PHP) and Drupal. You should be able to move a relatively simple Drupal installation from one stack to another without much problem.
Drupal places its core modules (which you should never alter or mess with) in the
/modulesdirectory. when you install 3rd-party modules they should always go under a directory in the/sitesdirectory, usually/sites/all/modules.However, keep in mind is that Acquia Drupal places its 3rd-party modules in a special location:
/modules/acquia. That's because Acquia tests and curates those 3rd-party modules, and they are part of the Acquia Drupal distribution. As with Drupal core, you shouldn't alter or delete any of those modules – to do so would be to get your copy of Acquia Drupal out of sync with the developers, and give problems with upgrades, etc.the important part
In your case, you want to migrate your installation of Acquia Drupal from the Acquia Drupal stack to another stack. This presents no problem. You should be able to copy your drupal directory from your Acquia install to XAMPP without having to do any separate module installs. When the move is complete, you'll be running the Acquia Drupal distribution on the XAMPP stack. Obviously you'll need to export your current MySQL database and import it into XAMPP as well, and tweak settings.php if there are any differences in database hostname, port, db name, and password between the two stacks.
Sorry for the length here, hope it's clear. I would be more than happy to assist you in this if you run into any trouble. Migration is one of those areas where a little (hard-earned) experience can make a huge difference in reducing the pain!
migration - understanding the ramifications
quote:
Obviously you'll need to export your current MySQL database and import it into XAMPP as well, and tweak settings.php if there are any differences in database hostname, port, db name, and password between the two stacks.
In the struggle to get my arms around Drupal, I keep forgetting that is really just a (very elegant and powerful) front end for a database. My knowledge of MySQL is only passing, and its been a decade (ok, 15 years now) since I did serious programming against a SQL database of any type (and that was Oracle). Thank you for the reminder that settings.php allows me to bridge the uninformed decisions I made in one database to the uninformed configuration decisions I made in the second.
As I create new databases, I'll be sure to try and keep them as similar as possible.
BTW - for what it's worth: I've discovered (the hard way) that at Modwest a basic hosting account only allows ONE SQL user - so much for creating a backup manager and a standard query user! Everything must go through one Super User account. (They indicated a willingness to change this "in the future" but that "future" has not yet arrived at Modwest.)
www.aheld.com
www.HikersCameraBelt.com