Joomla Tutorials

Move a Joomla Site from Test Directory to Live

May 6, 2010 | Written by Steve Burge

This tutorial will show you how to move a Joomla site from one directory to another using CPanel. One common reason for doing this is to move Joomla from a test folder and make it live. Joomla 1.5 makes this process very easy.

Login into your CPanel

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Often you can access your CPanel just by adding /cpanel to your domain name ... example.com/cpanel

Access the File Manager

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Although your screen may not look 100% identical to the one above, every version of Cpanel does come with a "File Manger" option somewhere.

Choose to Go to the Webroot

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Open Your Test Folder

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Select All the Files

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Click on Move File

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Move to /public_html/

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Check Your Site

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Visit the front of your site in its new location and verify that everything is working correctly.

Login to Your Joomla Site Administrator

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Go to Site >> Global Configuration

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Change Path to Log folder

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Change that setting to remove your /test/ folder

Change Path to Temp-folder

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Change that setting to remove your /test/ folder. Click "Save" in the top-right corner.


 

 


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Comments 

 
# jackibar 2010-08-04 10:51
I would like to add that I had to do one more step to get everything working! When I moved my site to the new directory, everything looked right except clicking on any links within my site would give a "Not Found" error! I finally figured out that I had to change 1 setting in the .htacess file - the rewrite directory was still set to the old directory - changing this to the new one fixed all my links!
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# JJ 2011-04-08 04:22
Thanks for the tip.
But how is this done ?

As i get the same 404 error.

But when comparing the old (backup 1.5) and new htaccess file they are quie different.
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# iowawebco 2011-04-08 12:24
Hi JJ,

Give this a try (especially the troubleshooting parts in the bottom of the tutorial):
http://www.ostraining.com/blog/joomla/ultimate-joomla-sef-guide/

Let me know in the support forum, www.ostraining.com/forum , if you still have trouble.

Kind regards,
Nick
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# JJ 2011-04-08 14:30
Thanks for the link Nick.

I have done all the steps (i think - i.e. sef, file rename, access edit) and the mod-rewrite is working fine as in the example.

However i am :
(i) still getting a 404 error on the front end (root and index.php),
and
(ii) a token error on the administration login to the backend - which clears after a few attempts but re-occurs.

Started to wish i had never done the upgrade.

JJ
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# JJ 2011-04-08 16:38
Hi Nick
Thanks for the tip, and i have tried the link and at least it shows the mod_rewrite works.

(i.e. change htaccess file name, sef setting changed/back, change htaccess file

However after the 'Jupgrade' the same problems seem to remain.

Problems are :

(i) 404 error on joomla root (frontend) : index.php

(ii) token error on backend/administration login (which is overidden after a few refreshes

Any further help greatly appreciated.


JJ

(Starting to wish i had never upgraded.)
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# steve 2010-08-04 17:13
Good point, thanks jackibar.

Yes, if you have Search Engine Friendly URLs turned on, you may well need to modify the .htaccess file.
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# Spider 2011-12-05 22:49
Hi Nick/ Steve:
I am looking at moving my DEV site and making it the main site. The DEV site is a 1.7 Joomla! site and the one in public_html is a 1.5 site.
Does this make any difference in applying the advice in this tutorial... Will there be some compatibility issues?

I want to do this exchange but not confident this will work for 1.7 into a 1.5 install...

Tony
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# iowawebco 2011-12-05 23:13
Hi Tony,

Everything should work fine if you follow the advice I gave you in the other discussion :)
http://www.ostraining.com/blog/joomla/sp-upgrade-for-joomla-15-to-17-migration/#comment-1842

Make backups as a just in case :)

Kind regards,
Nick
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# Nawid 2012-01-23 07:05
Hi dear ,

I have a problem with setting up and editing of my joomla templates , when i am try to install the joomla template , the process in finishing successfully , but the template in live mode does not seems complete , its look like a test mode , it just have one link ( home ) button , resizing text options and etc , but not the main layout of the website ,!!!!

do you have any solution for this please ?
If yes kindly respond this message
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# iowawebco 2012-01-23 15:43
Hi and welcome, Nawid!

Sounds like an interesting dilemma! We would love to get into a discussion with you on this. If you are a student at OSTraining.com, please log into the support forum (http://www.ostraining.com/support-forum/) and post the question in there, so that one of our support techs can look into it for you. If you’re not a student, I hope you’ll consider becoming one, so that we can give you the attention you deserve. You can find out more about our online class at www.ostraining.com/online

Kind regards,
Nick
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