WordPress Migration

Guidance on how to migrate to StackOS

So you've decided to make the first step to moving your block to a decentralized compute platform.

If you come from the docker/kubernetes world, you will feel most at home after you get to know a few new things specific to StackOS.

If you come from the world of "Buying a WordPress Site" / Blog as a service, talk to us before going in deeper. Although StackOS makes many things easier, it is also good to check if there is any gap between what you require and what is provided.

If you come from the world of "Install WordPress on Linux" but you have no docker experience, then be aware you will benefit from learning some basic things about docker. Just like how CLI is the foundation of installing WordPress, Docker is the foundation of how compute loads are loaded into StackOS.

A few things to check: Are you starting a brand new WordPress Blog?

• Launch the WordPress App on the StackOS AppStore and you will be well on your way.

• A https://wordpress-0xYourEthAddress.cluster.stackos.io domain will be made for you

Trying to migrate an existing test/production site?

• Are you going to keep the same domain and path before/after migration to StackOS?

  • If Yes, use the updraft plugin to export and import your wordpress contents

  • If No, if you wish to change either:

    • The protocol: https://www.original.com -> http://www.anycustomdns.com

    • The domain: www.test.com -> www.final.com

    • Or the path: www.blog.com/test123 -> www.blog.com/

    • Then you will benefit from a plugin which does more of the conversion work for you. It costs a little bit of money but it will save you many times that amount of work:

      • https://updraftplus.com/shop/migrator/

      • Just $49 to save hours of frustration

      • To be clear, this is not a StackOS problem. WordPress hardcodes URL Host/Paths which make it difficult to do any migration no matter your computing platform of choice.

• After migrating your site, we assume you will be on a custom DNS domain in which case you will be on HTTP to begin with

• You should use something like CloudFlare to take care of the HTTPS part for you (see below)

To get started: Fund your StackOS Account:

Account Funding - Wordpress

Launch the WordPress App on StackOS

• StackOS - WordPress Application - Adjust CPU/RAM

• If you really know what you are doing with docker, you can also do this part manually without the AppStore Wizard. Some sysadmins may prefer to customize this part deeply

Once your WordPress App on StackOS is launched, if you want to make any custom changes, you will need to use a "WebTTY" to gain access to the internals of your "pod" or "workload". Here are some tips:

• StackOS - WebTTY (external)

If you wish to load complex themes, be sure to increase your upload limits. Here are some tips:

Upload limit increase

NOTE: Notice how we download content from external sites using curl.

• If you need to add any external content, rather than FTP, use curl to bring in ourside content directly into your pod

• Note only content under Data Persistence will be preserved across reboots/reconfigures

  • For example /var/www/html for wordpress

If you wish to use a custom domain with your WordPress on StackOS deployment, we recommend CloudFlare DNS which will both handle your DNS and HTTPS SSL Termination.

• What is DNS? https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-dns/

• What is HTTPS? https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/what-is-https/

If you already own your domain you should ADD (not migrate/transfer) it to CloudFlare.

• https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/201720164-Creating-a-Cloudflare-account-and-adding-a-website

If you really like cloudflare you can transfer your domain to CloudFlare later, but if this is new to you, we don't recommend mixing this complexity at this time. Add your custom DNS to your wordpress pod:

• StackOS - Custom DNS for Pod

Your CloudFlare DNS will typically look like this:

• StackOS WordPress Typical Cloudflare DNS Entries

If you set up myblog.com and you want www.myblog.com to connect to it, set up a redirection rule

• StackOS - Cloudflare HTTPs + WWW Redirect

• You don't need to do this if you are only using a subdomain like blog.mysite.com

Add the cloudflare plugin to your wordpress:

• https://wordpress.org/plugins/cloudflare/

• When you turn on HTTPS on cloudflare, even when your wordpress makes http links, this plugin should change "most" to https automatically.

• Here is some visual guidance to what you might see (may change from time to time)

  • StackOS Wordpress - CloudFlare Plugin Configuration

Set your wordpress URLs correctly for HTTPS on Cloudflare:

If you get a "Too Many Redirects" error on your browser, this is this prior setting that needs to be adjusted

• In which case you will enjoy this guide on fixing the internals of wordpress:

  • StackOS - WordPress - Fix Site Redirect Loop

If you want to know what extra settings the Cloudflare Wordpress Plugin updates for you check this document

• https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/227342487

If you update some settings on the StackOS Dashboard and your machines don't update after a few minutes, you can check if something is stuck:

• StackOS - Get your pods unstuck

If you feel your account may have an underlying problem, you can always try to reset it and get any of the latest infrastructure updates which may benefit your situation:

Reset StackOS Account

If you are trying to do a 2 step migration from original.domain.com -> test.stackos.io, then from test.stackos.io to real.stackos.io, then you should become more familiar with the way that wordpress handles domain name changes.

Wordpress Domain Change