Quick methods to move a website to a new host

Question:

How can I quickly clone my existing website to my new hosting account? I want to avoid copying all my files via ftp to my local computer and then re-uploading them – that would take a very long time on my slow internet connection.

Answer:

These command all require you to use the unix command shell but they are very fast ways to clone your website over. If you need help, send a message to support with the login information for your old host and we can do these commands for you.

To quickly pull your backup from your old host :

1. Make the backup on the old host

2. Move it somewhere in the public_html/www/”live” part of your site.

3. On your new server with us: wget http://server.oldhost.com/backup.tgz

4. remove the file from your old server. Don’t forget this step or you’ll have a copy of your site accessible to anyone who might happen to guess the name and location of it.

The second option is to use rsync to make a copy of your site and allow for updates without re-copying everything.

To clone with rsync, do the following: (again contact tech support if you need help!)

cd ~/
rsync -vaze ssh your_user@old_server.com:~/ .

this will copy all your files from the old host to your current directory.

The first run will copy everything over. When you run it over again, it will only copy over the changes. Useful if you want to move the site over, test it out and then do one final copy before going live (in case anything changed on the old server).

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