Reduce File Size

• accesslog,
• all tables starting with 'cache' and
• watchdog.

The emptying out process is not absolutely necessary but you will note that the table 'accesslog' holding 24,000 odd records accounts for nearly half of all records in the database. Simply click the 'Empty' button alongside the relevant table name. As is usual with this type of operation you must confirm that you do in fact do want to empty the table. The term used is 'truncate' which means empty the table.

Note that we are not deleting the table, merely emptying the records.

Repeat this for all the tables to be emptied as listed above (also highlighted in the image above).

Backup old host database(s)

At your old host, access phpMyAdmin, you're going to backup your database(s) which will ultimately be downloaded to your computer.

Click the Export tab and a screen similar to the following should be displayed (click for larger image).

As per the image above, select all tables and check the entries as indicated. Make sure to check "save as file" and select compression mode required.

At this point click the "Go" button and your download manager or save as file dialog should appear. Under my system (firefox) the following appears.

Accept the file, click 'Ok' and an sql file will be created and downloaded to your computer. The file downloaded, is for all intents and purposes, a backup file of your database. This file will be imported into a newly created database at your new host.

Import SQL file into new database

You should now have an SQL file, which is your backup database file, safely stored away in your computer. The next step is to transfer the contents of that file into a new database at your new host.

Firstly, access you new host, navigate to the cpanel pages, then to the database section and follow the prompts to create a new MySql database. Obviously, remember the database name and user name for later reference.

Once created, access phpMyAdmin and navigate to your newly created database. In the example that follows I created a new database named, "newdrupaldb". You will notice that there are no tables created as yet, that is what the following process will do. Click on the Import tab and you should see a screen similar to the following. Click on image for a detailed view

At this screen click on the Browse button and a file dialog window should appear. Navigate to the directory where the SQL file resides.

You have a couple of options here. Upon downloading the original SQL file, you might as well compress it, if it wasn't compressed in the downloading procedure. As you can see from the image above the compressed version file size is heaps smaller than the original. The importing process accepts an SQL file either in standard SQL format or compressed (ie. zipped) format. It's quicker to upload a compressed file. Either way select the file to be uploaded. A screen similar to the following should appear with the location of the text file filled in.

Click the Go button to start the uploading process. Depending upon the size of the SQL file, this may take a few minutes, be patient. At the end of the process your screen should be similar to the following.

You should notice that, in the example above, 66 tables were created. Your imported database may have a different number of tables created and that's purely down to the fact that you may be using more or less modules than me.

That's it as far as the database is concerned. When configuring Drupal later on it will be just a matter of modifying the settings.php file with the database details. Trust me, that's a simple process and will be explained when we get to it.

Addon Domain(s)

As seems to be the case these days most hosts are offering one free domain for your use. Obviously, if you are transferring from another host you already have a domain name registered and you will eventually be changing the nameservers at your domain registrar to point to your new domain. Don't do it now, that is the last step.

In regards to the 'free domain name' accept the offer and use that domain name purely for administrative purposes. I recommend not using the free domain name for public purposes. It's not a good idea for your host to also be your domain registrar (they will be for the free domain name), it only leads to problems down the track should there be any issues with your host. Effectively, your host could hold you to ransom as they hold the key, the domain name registration.

Another little issue with free domain names or think of them as the main account name is that the document root is the public_html folder and that can't be changed. Well it can't for my host, Drupal Value Hosting. What this means is that if you are wanting a clean site, eg. http://mysite.com, (not referring to a sub-folder) then when uploading and extracting the Drupal (or any system) files, by default the top level folder will be something similar to drupal6-2. You would have to rename this top level folder to public_html or move all the folders and files under the drupal-6-2 folder to the public_html folder. Either way, all files are now at the top level folder of your system. Why is this an issue? If you are considering running a few other sites then all of a sudden it becomes very messy at the top level public_html folder as the new sites will need to have their folders mixed in with the Drupal setup. As I said, very messy.

The following assumes that you are not using your one and only so-called free domain name.

You now need to prepare your site for your existing domain name(s). Access your new host cpanel pages and navigate to the Domain section.

Click on the Addon Domains link and the following screen should appear.

It is from this screen where you enter your existing domain name(s). Assuming your existing domain name is oldsite.com, that name is entered in the 'new domain name' field. You will note as soon as you've entered that, the document root will automatically be public_html/oldsite.com.

If you only have one Drupal site then this would be suitable though I recommend against it. Looking to the future, it's far easier to have a specific Drupal folder (under public_html) and all your document roots of all your sites pointing to the one folder. This will be clearer when a 'multi-site' Drupal setup is discussed.

Change the document root to where Drupal is installed (or will be installed). If the folder isn't yet created, it will be. Note, it must be a sub-folder of public_html. Click the Add Domain button and your entries should be saved. The following screen should appear.

For an example I also created addon domains for oldsite1.com, oldsite2.com. Returning to the main Addon Domain page will now appear like so.

You will note that all the newly created addon domain names all point to the same document root directory. This is required for a multi-site Drupal setup.

You should also note that at this point your existing domain names are still pointing to your old host, that will be the last issue to be addressed. We are merely preparing ourselves at the moment.

FTP Accounts

A tool that you will definitely need is a File Transfer Protocol ("FTP") client program. These programs are more or less explorer type programs in which files can be uploaded and downloaded from the server.

There are a number of freely available FTP client programs and here are a few:

• Smart FTP (31 Aug, 2008, no longer free)
• Filezilla
• Core FTP
• Cyberduck (for Mac)
• Google Search Results

In order to utilise an FTP client you must first set-up FTP accounts at your host. I'm assuming that this particular process doesn't require detailed explanation as most likely you would have been using an FTP client at your old host. Suffice to say, that at my host, when creating the addon domain names corresponding FTP accounts were created as well. If this is not the case with your host, simply follow the prompts to create an FTP account(s). Even if automatic and default FTP accounts were created I'd recommend purposely creating an FTP account that purposely points to a specified folder. That folder's sole purpose being to receive uploaded files. Once uploaded, they can be moved to where ever you want.

My preferred FTP client is Smart FTP as that has a server to server transfer of files feature. I couldn't find that feature in Filezilla when I last checked or should I say it wasn't that obvious whether that feature was present. What this means is that with a server to server transfer of files it speeds up the process as the files (images etc) do not have to be downloaded into your computer and then uploaded (a very slow process) to your new host server.

For examples (screen shots) that follow in this guide relating to FTP procedures I'll be referring to Smart FTP. Regardless of which FTP client you choose to use, the concepts are the same, it's just that screen shots and button clicks will be different.

Transferring files

There are a number of ways in which files can be transferred from one server to another. A feature of SmartFTP is Server to Server and is a very handy one at that.