Transferring WordPress to a new host can be a very simple exercise if you use the easiest method and know what you’re doing.
On the other hand it really can be a huge headache as i’ve just completed 3 transfers to Media Temple recently and found that the MT Control Panel is nothing like cPanel which i am used too.
I’ve figured it out now and its been an interesting experience which i’m sure you’ll agree with if you follow this path.
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to fully backup WordPress using a plugin and then restore your site to Media Temple.
What You’ll Need
Creating Full Backup
Install the backup plugin and follow the instructions on how to create a full backup.
Setup Domain
You’ll need to setup a directory for your existing domain that you want transferred to Media Temple. This is very simple and normally completed when you first open the account with MT.
FTP Backup to Your HTML Directory
Once you have created a full backup, you need to use FTP to transfer the full backup zip file to the correct destination folder on the Media Temple server.
You’ll also need to upload the importbuddy.php file to the exact location as the backup file.
The correct location is available by following this path.
HTML Directory:/home/135806/domains/yourdomain.com/html*
FTP path to HTML directory:domains/yourdomain.com/html
You’ll see the correct folder to transfer your backup file into once you navigate use this path in FTP. The directory folder should be named html and be inside a directory folder named yourdomain (whatever your domain is named)
Create a New Database
Simply create a new database and change the file permissions on the database to read/write as they are no access by default.
Create a Database User
Make sure the DB user is connected to the database you have created. Contact Media Temple directly if you are unsure how to do this.
Save New Database Details
Save the details for the new database in notepad as you’ll need to enter this info when you restore your backup using the importbuddy.php script.
Example:
Database :db123456_dbname
Host Name: internal-db.s123456.gridserver.com
Database User: db123456_username
Password: nottelling123
Restore Backup To New Server & Database
The first step here is to navigate to yourdomain.com/importbuddy.php in your browser
To do this you simply type in the domain name you are restoring the site to on your Media Temple server and add /importbuddy/php on the end in your browser.
This will access the importbuddy.php script you uploaded to your new directory folder using FTP and start the import process.
Follow the steps until you get to the file extraction step. Here you may have a problem as Media Temple may reject fast and slow extraction of your backup.
If you check your html directory folder for this domain, you should find the zip folder of your backup has actually been extracted even though it says it hasn’t. If you see wp-content folder in there with other files then it has been done.
Click the back button until you get back to step one and check the skip extraction box. Proceed to the next few steps and you’ll find you can then enter your new database details.
You should now have successfully finished restoring your backup to Media Temple so check your site including links and page navigation then delete the backup and import script from your server.
Note: You may need to login to your WordPress site to Save your Settings > Permalinks again if you get errors when checking your site.
Cost$ & Opinion On Media Temple
Becoming familiar with a different Control Panel and server management software isn’t easy when you find cPanel so easy to work with. I’ve read mixed reviews and received mixed reports about Media Temple and my opinion is that the concept is good but not the only solution.
I personally prefer using a premium WordPress ONLY hosting account which is set at a fixed monthly rate rather than not know how much i’ll have to pay each month which is the case with Media Temple.
If you use heaps of resources, they can’t throttle your account so they simple charge you for it or even shut down your account if its way over the limit as they disclose on their site.
What if my server exceeds the allocated GPUs?
If you should exceed your GPU allocation, you will simply be billed at the end of the month for the overage that your server incurred at the rate of $0.10 per GPU. Source: MT
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