Advice re migrating from a WIndows server to Ubuntu with WordOps

grl570810

Hi All,
Newbie to WordOps and my first post so please be gentle!

I am about to embark on a project to shut down my Windows hosting server. I no longer need to run DNN sites that require Windows hosting, so am free to switch my WordPress and static HTML sites to an Ubuntu server. I have been recommended WordOps as a tool to assist me with this; for background I have been a IT technical person for over 45 years with experience across multiple OS from mainframes down to PCs, but my *nix experience on production servers is well out-of-date (like mid-90s out-of-date), and I've only dabbled in Linux style distros since then.

My question. Does anyone have any advice re migrating my WP sites to the new server using WordOps? Has anyone done this and can point me at the 'gotchas' (I'm sure there will be some!). This is the process I'm envisaging for each site:

Set up a new WP site for the domain using something like wo site install example.com --wpredis --le
Backup the database and files for the site on my Windows server, FTP across.
Restore the site database 'over the top' of the base one created by the wo site install
Import the site file structure (not including wp-config and the IIS web.config file!)
merge the wp-config that wo created with the one from the original server
update the DNS to point at the new server IP, stand back and cross fingers. 🙂

Does that look like it should work? I will of course be testing this on an in-house development server before I go out and buy my new production server.

My one major concern with this is the difference in behaviour re case sensitivity in Windows which is brain-dead re case, and *nix which isn't. Has anyone experience with this; is it a problem IRL or is it just something that theoretically is an issue but in practice doesn't cause grief?

Thanks in Advance for all responses.

Regards,
Graham

marty

There is one minor issue with your process - you can't add the LetsEncrypt certificate on the new server before pointing the DNS. Unless you use DNS API validation.
More on that here: https://docs.wordops.net/commands/site/#lets-encrypt
It's more complex but depends if a bit of downtime matters or not (you can just change the DNS then issue the certificate once DNS has propogated).

For files I'd generally just copy over the wp-content folder, and look for anything in the root that matters (robots.txt etc).

grl570810

marty good point about the LE certificate. Fortunately I create the existing certificates to be exportable so I'll be able to copy those across as well, then I assume I can issue the -le command once the site is live on the new server to automate the renewal from then on?

marty

Should be fine - I just use DNS validation where possible as once it's done it's done.
Let us know how it goes, and if Windows throws up any surprises. :-)