How to create a Staging website (Managed Cloud Server) Print

A Staging website is useful to test changes, update to a new WordPress versions, update your plugins & themes or to develop a new version of your website safely without affecting your live website. 

Our Managed Cloud Server allows you to create a staging website with just a few clicks and once you are happy with the changes you made, you can push the changes to your live website quickly.

Create Staging Website

1. Start by accessing the Managed Cloud Platform through our Client Portal.
   
   
2. Once logged in, click on Websites in the left navigation bar.
   
   
3. Click the Add Websites button at the top right corner.
   
   
4. Between "Production website" and "Staging website", select Staging website.
   
   
5. Between "Start from scratch", "install an app", and "Clone a website", select Clone a website.
   
   
6. Input the Staging domain of your choice. It can be any values that you like, and it will use our Staging subdomain so convenience sake.
   
   
7. If you are using a WordPress website, keep the checkbox for Perform a WordPress search and replace checked, so our system will automatically search for the database with your domain and replace it with the Staging domain. 
   
   
8. Select which of your website that you would like to clone.
   
   
9. Click Add. 
   
   
10. When the cloning process is done, you will see the message "Website clone done". Click Manage website to start managing your Staging website. 

Push Changes from Staging Website to Production Website

1. In your Managed Cloud Platform > Websites, select the website that you want to manage. 
   
   
2. In the website overview page, you will see the Push live button, click it and you will get a dropdown:
   - To an existing website: This will push the Staging website to an existing website in your server.
   - To a new website: This will push the Staging website to a brand new Production website. 
   
   
3. If you select To an existing website, you will see the Push staging to existing site page:
   - Destination website: Select an existing Production website that will be overwritten by the content from the Staging website. 
   - Exclude Files: By default, the public_html/wp-config.php file and contents under the public_html/wp-content directory will not be copied from the Staging to the Production website. You can uncheck the checkbox if you want them to be copied, which will overwrite the content in the Production website. You may want to uncheck the public_html/wp-content option if you have installed or updated plugins and themes in the Staging website, and want them to be copied to the Production website. 
   - Add custom file: You can add file paths to custom files that you do not want to be copied. The path usually starts with public_html/.
   - Databases: This option will copy the database and database users from the Staging to the Production website. Keep these options checked, unless you do not want to copy the database to the Production website. 
   - Delete files from the destination website if they do not exist on the source: This option will delete files in the Production website that does not exist in the Staging website. By keeping this option checked, any files which you have deleted from the Staging website will be deleted from the Production website as well. 
   - Sync PHP version: This option will make sure the PHP version of the Production website matches the version from the Staging website. This is useful if you have just tested the Staging website on a new PHP version and you now want the Production website to use the same PHP version.
   - Perform a WordPress search and replace: If you are using a WordPress website, keep this option checked so our system will automatically search for the database with your Staging domain and replace it with the Production domain. 
   - Click Push live and wait for the message which says "Website clone done".
   
   
4. If you select To a new website, you will see the Push staging website live page:
   - Package: If you have multiple servers in your platform account, you can choose which server to place the new Production website. 
   - Domain: You can input your Production website domain name. 
   - Perform a WordPress search and replace: If you are using a WordPress website, keep this option checked so our system will automatically search for the database with your Staging domain and replace it with the Production domain. 
   - Click Push live and wait for the message which says "Website clone done".