Make your plan

[rick-k]

So far so good with my three sites. As I write this, the new DNS pointings have propagated for two of them. I just did the third a few minutes ago, so maybe in 12 hours or so some of my devices or browsers will go there.

Have a plan for migrating your site. This is not necessarily a comprehensive list of what you need to do, but start with this.

Before you update DNS:

Download or back up all web files from FutureQuest.

Upload them to your new host. In case some things have to go in different places, make a note of that and figure out where all your code needs to be updated to point to those items. I found this affected the paths to files read by cgi scripts.

If your new host has a staging area, use it to make sure everything looks right.

Don't be surprised if your cgi scripts need more adjustments. You may need to ask for support or search the knowledge base at your new host to get things working again.

WordPress can be tricky. I'll figure that out later today. I saved the site with WordPress sections for last.

Updating DNS settings would be the last thing you'd do, ideally. But I expect to discover some things aren't mapped the way I think they are at my new host. So, I'll check everything carefully.

It may help you to know when your browser is going to the new host by making a subtle change somewhere. I put "Goodbye, Futurequest" messages on two of my sites on FutureQuest. I don't see them anymore, so I know my devices are going to the new host. I found that Microsoft Edge and Firefox on my desktop PC and Chrome on my smart phone all got the propagation at different times.

[Syneryder]

Originally Posted by rick-k

If your new host has a staging area, use it to make sure everything looks right.

A extra tip on this - the DreamHost staging option wasn't working for me, even after giving it a few hours. It was much faster to just get a Unique IP and use that IP for my staging. It does cost $6/mth at Dreamhost, but you can cancel it any time. It was worth it for the time and hassle it saved me.

Originally Posted by rick-k

Don't be surprised if your cgi scripts need more adjustments.

Doing a search across all my files for "/big/dom" was a quick way for me to find most of the adjustments I needed to make. The /big/dom directory structure seems unique to FutureQuest, it certainly wasn't the same at my new host anyway.


Also, if you're doing anything tricky in your .htaccess file, you might need to double check that at your new host. Could be easier to start fresh with a minimal / clean .htaccess while staging and slowly add lines back into the file as you test them.

[rick-k]

Originally Posted by Syneryder

Doing a search across all my files for "/big/dom" was a quick way for me to find most of the adjustments I needed to make. The /big/dom directory structure seems unique to FutureQuest, it certainly wasn't the same at my new host anyway.

I found those in cgi and changed them. I had a stubborn one though in WordPress. One plugin wouldn't let me see the blog or log in to the WordPress administration because it couldn't make some directory and it wanted to use that directory structure. I couldn't find where it was getting the instruction. The solution was deleting the plugin from the plugin directory. I logged in and updated WordPress. Everything's fine now. The plugin was for backups. Ironic, huh? I'll think about whether I want to use it or another method.

[JohnStrasser]

While I'll be (hopefully) getting it all done this weekend, my plan is to deactivate all WP plugins before I make my site backups - just in case.

Also thing IP addresses that need to be blocked, etc - just in case they're not actually logged anywhere or get lost in the move