So, I found out from submitting a support ticket the other day that Bluehost does not allow LaTeX to be installed on their servers. I’ve no idea why. This may be enough to cause me to start looking for a new webhost again and run a server switch near the time when my annual contract expires. And it’s not just the inability to run LaTeX that’s fueling this; it’s a number of other server limitations I keep running into. For instance, I would really like to set up an openID server for those sites I comment on periodically (like LiveJournal blogs) that allow openID authentication. I’d also like to play around with Habari (still in development), but I can’t seem to get it to install on my server.
So, I’m going to start doing a little research and querying to see if I can find a decent and affordable host that lets me do all these things. Shared hosting is most desirable at this point, since paying the exorbitant monthly fees for a Virtual Private Server is well beyond my means. Trouble is, I’m not sure it’s possible to do everything I want to do on a shared server.
For LaTeX, I need a server that has tetex-extra and dvipng installed, as well as imagemagick. For Habari, I need a PHP5 installation that actually functions like PHP5, instead of being a limited version. And I know something else is needed for openID that I don’t currently have, but I haven’t yet been able to pin down what.
I’m open to suggestions from the community, as well. Anything that will make my research a little easier is most welcome.
Tags: dvipng, habari, imagemagick, latex, openid, php5, servers, tetex-extra, virtual-private-server, webhosting
Well, I had my site moved from a PHP4 server to a PHP5 server so I could run a new application I’m interested in checking out. Trouble is, after the migration I discovered that I also need Apache2 installed, and this server only runs Apache 1.x.x. I’ve opened a new ticket to see what the chances are of getting Apache2. I don’t even know if Bluehost runs Apache2 on any of their shared servers. Hopefully, I’ll find something out soon. They’re usually pretty quick on the turn-around for open tickets, which is always nice.
Tags: apaches, bluehost, php, servers, webhosting
It is in upgrading to WordPress 2.1.2 that I am reminded of how glad I am that I switched webhosts. FTP speeds for Bluehost are already a thousand times better than what they ended up being for iPower. And the weird thing is that they used to be good with iPower, as well. But over time they got progressively worse and contacting support got me nowhere. So, that to say that my website is happy in its new home and I have more power and flexibility to truly customize it the way I want to.
Interestingly enough, I got yet another email this morning from iPower’s support team saying they were transferring my server switch to a higher level tech who could help me – a week after I called to close that account. Makes me doubly glad I switched because, otherwise, I’d still be waiting. I don’t know what’s happened at iPower recently, but they’ve gone from good customer support to a creeping monstrosity.
Oh, and WP 2.1.2 is now running happily, as well. I saw all the announcements and warnings yesterday but never had a chance to do anything about it. (And I wasn’t too terribly concerned – I’d upgraded to 2.1.1 long before the cracker starting messing with the download package.)
Tags: servers, software, Technology, weghosts, WordPress
Jean requested that I lay out the process I used in moving my website to a new host, and since it’s information that others might be interested in, as well, I’ll put it up here. I’m sure there are other websites that spell out similar processes (and maybe even more efficient ones), but here’s the path I followed to get everything transferred to the new host.
- First things first – back up everything.
- I started will all my files, and since I’m paranoid I backed everything up in several flavors. First was the compressed backup file that you can request from iPowerWeb’s control panel. They place it in your root directory, which you can FTP to your computer from there. Then I simply FTPed everything straight down to my local hard drive.
- Then it was on to the databases. This part I did in three varieties. First I pulled down the compressed archive versions from iPowerWeb’s control panel. Then, I logged into phpMyAdmin and exported all the databases as .sql files. This is my preferred way of handling database moves because SQL files are much more manageable and easy to change manually as necessary (which as it turned out, was very necessary in my case). Then, my final backup plan involved using WordPress’s native export feature to make sure that, at the least, I was able to preserve the information, should something go drastically wrong with the database import.
- Then on to the domain transfer. Since I’d chosen Bluehost to be my new virtual residence, I went to their website and applied as a transfer client. I simply followed the 6-step process for transferring domains, making very sure that all my information matched my iPowerWeb account. I also had to login in to my domain registrar and update my domain servers (which you may or may not have to do). Once done, I had immediate access to my cPanel on Bluehost so I could start uploading files while waiting for the DNS to update my domain pointing from iPowerWeb to Bluehost.
- Time to start FTPing files back up into my new site. Filezilla is my FTP client of choice, so I fired it back up and started the process of moving my site, en masse, to my Bluehost file directory.
- While the files were transferring in, I opened phpMyAdmin in a new tab and started imported the database .sql files I’d downloaded just a few minutes earlier. Due to the fact that my username at iPowerWeb had a hyphen and my username at Bluehost does not, I also had to do a little manual database hacking before I could import anything. I had to open the databases in a text editor and Ctrl-H (find and replace) every instance of /home/user-name/ I found with /home/username/ in order to make sure that all my WordPress and bbPress installations would know where to find their files and information. I also deleted the CREATE database command at the beginning of each file, since phpMyAdmin only allows databases to be created from the control panel. This manual hacking will not be necessary if your username does not change with the new host. I also had to change the database names, since they were all prefixed by my username. Those changes made, I saved the .sql files and imported them directly into phpMyAdmin. And as I mentioned before, my database for Writer’s Blog was too large to import, so I had to use the Big Dump script to pull that back in (and it worked beautifully).
- Once all my files uploaded to the server again, I double-checked all the wp-config.php and config.php files for my various applications and made changes as necessary to make sure they were referencing the correct databases. I also re-enabled 777 authorizations on .htaccess files and wp-content/uploads/ directories to put everything back into working order.
- DNS updated very quickly – under six hours – and everything (with the exception of Writer’s Blog, which I was still wrestling with at the time) was back up and in working order quickly.
I believe that’s pretty much the entire process. Fortunately, nothing major went wrong throughout the entire process, so I didn’t have to rely on any of my backup methods for getting files or databases pulled into the new webhost. It was actually kind of fun to do (though it’s not something I plan to do again anytime soon) and a great learning experience for me.
I hope this walkthrough helps lay out the steps in at least general terms.
Tags: servers, Technology, webhost, WordPress
Well, that could have been a whole lot more painful. After three days of inactivity, we’re back up and running. New host, new server, better control panel, better options, better everything.
After three days of silence and no response from my former webhost iPower, I decided enough was enough. I’d already researched other webhosts and had found one I liked much better (even demoed the control panel), so I switched everything over to Bluehost. That went smoothly, and even the DNS change populated much faster than expected.
File uploads – all 164 MB of them – took a bit of time but went off without a hitch. And three of the four databases I used were imported in myPhpAdmin just fine. But I discovered rather quickly that there are drawbacks to having maintained a blog for over three years – the database that powers Writer’s Blog was 111 MB large – all in a plain text .sql file. The maximum upload size for myPhpAdmin is 51KB, so I had to find an alternative way to bringing that in. It took me a while to find a solution, but ultimately I found this handy-dandy import script called Big Dump, which is a staggered MySQL dump importer. It basically drags a large database in to MySQL in chunks, maintaining the rules of database imports. Once I had everything configured properly, the script took only a couple of minutes to import the database.
All the databases had to be hacked, of course – it couldn’t just be a simple import process. Basically, my database username changed with the new host, so I had to update that in all the .sql files. I also had to modify the file paths throughout the databases in order to get everything to point in the right direction. Nothing that a Ctrl-H didn’t fix, but with my Writer’s Blog database I actually had to make sure I used a fast enough computer to be open a text file of that size. I ended up having to use Microsoft Word (shudder) on my wife’s computer for that one in order to make the necessary modifications before uploading the whole thing back to my server and then running Big Dump to import it into MySQL.
It was a learning experience, to be sure, but now I’m much less intimidated by having to change servers in the future. Bluehost is already amazing me with its intuitive control panel and speedy customer service. I even get root access (if I can just figure out how to use it)! So, here’s to better things.
Time now to get caught up on all the writing I wasn’t able to do the last couple of days.
Tags: big-dump, bluehost, databases, ipower, myphpadmin, mysql, servers, software, Technology
Just as an FYI, I’m in the process of trying to transfer my website over to a new server in order to take advantage of more recent software updates on the backend (e.g. MySQL, php, etc.). So, it’s possible there may be a slight interruption of services for a couple of days while everything repopulates to the new DNS. I’ll keep you posted.
Tags: mysql, php, servers, software, Technology
