I have been involved in a birdwatching community web project for a long time. At the moment it has 250k pictures, 2500 blog posts from community members.

The site is a custom development – written by Askar Issabekov with php and MySQL and hosted under Dreamhost dedicated server.

Initially the migration plan was

• get and configure new hosting
• copy php scripts and media files
• backup/restore MySQL databases
• update hosts files and ensure everything works good
• set source site in “maintenance” mode
  • put notification on the site header
  • set databases in read-only mode
• backup/restore MySQL databases again
• copy media files delta
• set databases in r/w mode
• ensure everything works good
• change DNS from old host to new host

Some more data:

• MySQL database: 120 MB

It turned out that

• Source host uses Apache and target host uses Nginx
• phpMyAdmin cannot import database from SQL backup

So we ended up the following

• backup and document existing environment
• get and configure new hosting
  • ensure php version is the same
• copy php scripts and media files
  • remove all .htaccess and update nginx config files accordingly,
    e.g. Index etc.
  • fix files permissions (chmod)
• backup/restore MySQL databases
  • if the database is big
    • – consider splitting database – a few tables each backup/restore
    • – consider zipping database while export-import
  • if phpMyAdmin fails – use command-line mysql
  • update database connections (user names, passwords, database names and hosts)
    as temporary measure – it is possible to allow access to old host databases from new host ip
• update hosts files and ensure everything works good
• set source site in “maintenance” mode
  • put notification on the site header
  • set databases in read-only mode
• backup/restore MySQL databases again
• set databases in r/w mode
• copy media files delta
• ensure everything works good
• change DNS from old host to new host

Question: to avoid hassles with hosts files – is it possible to use a different real target name, then after verifying everything works good – change name

We’d also need to take care of e-mail migration

(WIP)