Moving CPG - Changing hosts

[rg]

Hey Everyone,

Good to be back on a CPG forum.  I have to change web hosts, and I want to move my CPG intact to the new host.  I currently have FTP access (of course) and some MyPHPadmin access.  What are the steps to take to move my whole gallery?

Also, the new host uses GD 2.x (instead of the 1.x I'm using now), will CPG make use of this (or is it "too late")?

Btw, I'm considering moving to LunarPages.  Anyone have any thoughts about them?

Thanks so much,
rg.

[Joachim Müller]

steps:
1) Backup your database (as decribed in the faq:backup)
2) verify that your backup is working! Preferrably, add the tables at your new host with phpMaAdmin
3) Backup all your files (ftp!) from your webspace to your local hard drive
4) Upload all the files to your new webhost (ftp)
5) Change permissions (CHMOD) of the folder /albums and all folders underneath it to write access for the script (usually 755 or 777)
6) at your new webhost: check that your gallery is running: if you kept the file structure within your gallery folder the same as on your old host, then there should be no problem
7) enter config in admin mode: change gd1 to gd2 (as your new webhost uses gd2) - if you don't, all pics newly added will look "funny" (strange colors)
8) optional step: if you want to improve the quality of your thumbs and intermediate pics, get the add-on tool util.php and use it to rebuild your pics and thumbs (they'll be better quality with gd2 - see the difference between gd1 and gd2 pics in faq:difference between gd1 and gd2)

As coppermine doesn't store absolute paths to pics, but relative ones changing hosts/migration is easy...
Hope this helps!

GauGau

[gtroll]

Some hosts have a way to backup your whole site into one tar.gz with mine I have cpanel there you go to "Backup>Generate/Download a Full Backup" and you get the whole site including the mysql, mail settings and password files EVERYTHING!

[rg]

GauGau:  Thanks so much.  I'll give this a try soon, and let you know how it goes.  Couple questions:
  * How would I very the tables work?  Do you just mean upload them to the new site and try it before I go deleting stuff?
  * With a program like wsFTP, this there any way to have it verify the download (to make sure it didn't miss some packets here and there)?

gtroll:  Wow, that sounds good, but I doubt I can do it.  I don't have Cpanel.  I'm currently on a "gotta send the guy an email to change any setting" host (he's a good guy, but I just think it's time for me to expand).  Nonetheless, I'll ask him about a backup and see what he says.

Thanks,
rg.

[Joachim Müller]

* How would I very the tables work?  Do you just mean upload them to the new site and try it before I go deleting stuff?

Yes, if both sites are available at the same time I'd go for this option. If this is not the case, replace all occurences of "cpg11d_" (or whatever prefix you used for the coppermine tables) with "cpgtest_" in the dump file and execute it in phpMyAdmin to see if the table have been created and filled correctly - you can even switch temporarily your existing coppermine (config!) to test if it works with the "cpgtest_"-tables.

* With a program like wsFTP, this there any way to have it verify the download (to make sure it didn't miss some packets here and there)?

with a plain ftp client like wsftp there's no such option afaik, but you could take a look at FTPSync or a similar product - they can compare local files to files on a webserver and update differences automatically.

GauGau