Moving from a development install to a production install.

[styson]

Greetings,

I'm converting a live website over to CMSms.  With the live site sitting on the url www.domain.org my CMSms install will NOT be using that domain name until the cutover date.  So, here is what I'm planning on doing.  I'd like to know if this "should" work.

• Install CMSms at the new host, and use an alternate address such as newsite.domain.org. 
• Add an A record to DNS and point it at newsite.domain.org
• Use the newsite.domain.org for theme and content development

When it's time to cutover

• move the whole CMSms directory structure from the subdomain root to the main domain root (hosting provider sets up subdomains in their own htdocs folder)
• change all entries in config.php that point to newsite.domain.org to www.domain.org and fix all file paths to point to the new folder for the domain
• Change DNS for www.domain.org to point to the new site.
• no database changes are needed, mysql database is the same for the whole domain.

At this point, the site should be live and answering to all www.domain.org requests.  Did I miss anything?

[tsw]

sounds like a plan.

I have one suggestion.

set the new server just as it would be live site, but dont change dns yet. just add the new server ip to yout hosts file so your computer thinks that it is the right server. when you are done just make the dns change and you are all set as soon as the change spreads all over.

just a suggestion, your method works just as well

[styson]

The hosts file changes wont work because all the content creation will be done by people who need access to the current live site at the same time and they are not technical.

[Pierre M.]

Hello,

another suggestion :
Password protect your dev.domain.org server. Just with a simple HTTP basic auth. This unique shared user+pass known by all the people who need to access the site being built will prevent this live site from being visited/crawled before it is ready. When you launch the site, you remove the password protection while changing the DNS.

Have fun

Pierre M.