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By Marquis on
Hi all,
I'm fairly new to Drupal, getting the hang of it.
I've decided to setup a test and production server. At this time, both are quite empty. As I still expect 1 month or so before I roll out my first production version.
My only concern has to do with DB syncing.
What needs to be done when "upgrading" my prod db from my test db.
The test db might have new features etc.. but the prod db has new/deleted users, content etc...
Any tips?
I've searched around, but don't really know what to search for... so results are really overwhelming. So I'm sorry if this has been asked a billion times already.
Thanks.
Comments
May not be the answer you
May not be the answer you are looking for but may still be of interest ... http://drupal.org/node/224608
gpk
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www.alexoria.co.uk
gpk
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www.alexoria.co.uk
Don't!
Hi Marquis,
This is a BIG question, but the fact that you are asking it now is going to set you in good stead for the future!
I'll mention DOCUMENTATION now for the first time. Once you've decided how you're going to do this, document it, fully. Either set up a seperate blog, or just use a text file, it doesn't matter as long as you note down everything you do.
Your test site should be a copy of your live site i.e. all files copied to a different directory using settings.php to point at a copy of your database. Better still, you should also have a development site which is a complete copy of your live site too. You should look on your dev and test sites as being completely disposable. You should therefore be quite happy and comfortable with recreating your dev and test sites from your live site at any time. You should also have regular backups of your live site. Even though you haven't 'gone live' with your live / production site yet, you should still be aiming for this structure.
The scenario... You want to try out a new module...
You create a clean dev site which is a replica of your current live site. You install the module (copy the files into the module directory documenting exactly what you do and how you enable and configure it) and you 'play' with it. You either decide you don't like it and delete the whole dev site, or you think that's cool, I'm going to use it.
At this point you create a new test site from your live site and following your notes from the dev site you install and configure your module. Once it's installed and configured you test it again so you're happy. If possible you get somebody else to try it out too, then make the final decision that it really is what you want.
You then have a set of notes and the experience of two installations to install the module on your live site. First step is to back up your site, then go ahead with the installation and configuration. You may decide to take your site offline while you do it, but this'll depend on your environment and view on downtime (once you've gone live).
You should note that throughout this scenario I have not once mentioned copying test or development data to the live / production site. As far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't. Files can go from dev to test and from test to live, but not data. You should be confident in knowing that you can make additions and changes to your files and configurations on your live site, having tried them out on a dev site and tested them on a test site, and having documented the whole process, AND being confident that if despite this something still goes wrong, you can restore from a recent backup.
I'd have gone into this a bit more, but I'm out of time at the moment. Maybe somebody else will contribute too.
Hope this helps?
Regards,
Sverre :-)
--
Sverre Sverresonn
Group Scout Leader
21st Medway Scouts, Kent, UK
http://www.21stmedway.org.uk/
You're totally right. Its
You're totally right.
Its only after reading your post that I realized that my workflow was flawed. I've setup differently in a way that makes a little more sense. Thanks for making it clear for me. Sometimes, seems like the more we think... dosen't make things more clear. Nice to have a community to fallback onto ;)
Cheers!
Also of interest ...
Macro module - bundled with Devel module. See http://www.lullabot.com/videocast/using-macro-module-move-content-type-c....
gpk
----
www.alexoria.co.uk
gpk
----
www.alexoria.co.uk