Note: You should disable any caching and security plugins before migrating your site to Indystack. You do not need caching plugins on our system, but you can restart security plugins after the migration is completed.

When it comes to migrating your site to Indystack, you have 2 general options. Either handle the migration yourself, via SFTP, or provide us with access to your existing host and we'll handle the migration for you.

This article gives the framework to start on either option. First we include the steps to handle the migration yourself, then at the bottom of the article you'll find steps required to request us to handle your migration.

Migrate your site directly

Migrating your WordPress site to our platform is easy with the following steps. This guide will walk you through the process of manually transferring your website files and database.

Enable SFTP Access

To begin, you must enable SFTP access in your Indystack account UI. This is a required step for transferring files. Click here to learn how to enable SFTP and follow the instructions.

Connect Using SFTP

Once SFTP is enabled, you can connect to your site using any SFTP client. There are two methods for transferring your data:

  • From your computer: Transfer your site files directly from your local machine to our platform.
  • From a remote location: You can also use the rsync command to sync files directly from another server to our platform.

Site File Path

Your WordPress site will be stored in the following path:

/var/www/userdata/web/public/public_html

Make sure to place all your site files in this directory during the transfer.

Save wp-config.php

When deploying infrastructure on our platform, WordPress is pre-installed along with a database. 

The wp-config.php file contains crucial database and platform-specific configurations. Be sure to save a copy of this file, as it is required for the proper operation of your site after migration. 

Once you migrate your files, make sure to overwrite your existing wp-config.php file on the new server with the saved copy to retain your database and platform-specific settings.

Save mu-plugins Directory

If you decide to remove all the files and copy your data over, be sure to also save the wp-content/mu-plugins directory. This directory contains our custom platform plugins that are necessary for your site's functionality.

Migrate Your Database

You can transfer your WordPress database in two ways:

Option 1: Using phpMyAdmin

Limitations: phpMyAdmin can be used only if the SQL file is not larger than 100 MB.

Steps:

  1. Access phpMyAdmin through our platform's UI.
  2. If you are importing a new database, first delete the existing tables in your database to avoid conflicts.
  3. Import the SQL file into the database.

Option 2: Using wp db cli

Steps:

  1. First, identify the database name. You can find it in your wp-config.php file or by checking the WORDPRESS_DATABASE_NAME environment variable using the following command:
    env | grep WORDPRESS_DATABASE_NAME
  2. Access wp db cli: Open the wp db cli interactive shell:
    wp db cli
  3. Drop the existing database:
    DROP DATABASE your_database_name;
  4. Recreate the database:
    CREATE DATABASE your_database_name;
  5. Select database:
    USE your_database_name;
  6. Import the SQL File: Import the SQL file into the selected database:
    SOURCE /path/to/your-database-file.sql;

We take care of migration

We would require, ideally, full server access to your WordPress site. However, alternatively WP-Admin panel access is enough to begin the migration process also.

When sharing your login details do not send them over our LiveChat or Slack support or via email. Instead, visit secureshare.indystack.com and submit your credentials there. You will see the following options. Leave the lifetime at the default (3-days). Max views can also stay at the default (1 view).

Enter your server details in the primary text box, for the title make sure it is related to the site you are migrating so we can distinguish it from other requests. Include the name of your site for example.

Once your details are saved, send an email to [email protected] to share the secret link and we'll take over from there and update you on the progress via email.

Alternatively, if you can provide a copy of your site's wp-content files and an .sql dump of your database, via accessible online storage, then we can migrate those files for you directly. Any access credentials should be shared using secureshare.indystack.com .