Creating a development/testing vBulletin Instance

[sr20de_99]

Assuming that my site is running at mySite.com, would I be able to create a subdomain dev.mySite.com, and install vBulletin in it for development/testing purposes?

Is it simply a matter of:
- Creating a new subdomain
- Add a new database to the subdomain
- upload vBulletin into the subdomain's home directory, and install from there?

[setishock]

As per the TOS you can have one work copy but it must not be seen by the public. It has to be totally invisible to any one besides you.

[Dave]

Yes, that's all you have to do.

vBulletin's license agreement:

1.7 Test Copy. You may make one (1) additional temporary test copy for the purpose of testing code, template and database modifications. Such a test copy must not be made available to the general public at any time.

[sr20de_99]

The dev site would only be used for testing the creation of custom templates, and database files, and would not be available to the general public, but I was hoping that a couple of my site's admins would be able to access it to test the changes before rolling them out on our live site. I wasn't planning on copying over any of our forum data, or users.

Is there a better way to go about this?

[Dave]

You can just restrict the dev forum to a couple of IP addresses using a .htaccess file. That way it will not be public.

[sr20de_99]

Sounds good, thanks for the information!

[alcazarx]

Alternately you can use it on your local computer - if you have a webserver with php.
<- uses this for years for different webscripts (ITS, CMS, Forum etc.)

[webmastersun]

Originally Posted by Dave

You can just restrict the dev forum to a couple of IP addresses using a .htaccess file. That way it will not be public.

I agree with this idea. Using a private forum to check or test somethings for your real forum.