Backup/Test Site - Best Practices

[caimakale]

I'm curious what others do for their backup/test versions of vBulletin.

I think the standard protocol is to copy the database and create a new instance of it and then install vBulletin in a different directory, but how do you handle upgrades to the software? How often do you refresh your database so it includes current members and posts? Do you .htaccess protect the test directory? Robots.txt to disallow crawling?

What are some of your best practices?

[Replicant]

I do a .htaccess password protect on my test directory as per the license requirement (Second instance of the script can't be accessible to the public). I backup my current forum and do whatever testing, mods, tweaks and so forth without any updates until the next version comes out. I then upgrade my test database with my mods and tweaks to make sure everything is working with the new version, then upgrade the live site. I use custom themes on my site and since they have to be updated as well to maintain compatibility, I uninstall those before upgrading then reinstall the new version once the upgrade is finished. I found that most of the errors I encountered will upgrading were due to the system trying to process custom templates.

[caimakale]

Originally Posted by Replicant

I do a .htaccess password protect on my test directory as per the license requirement (Second instance of the script can't be accessible to the public). I backup my current forum and do whatever testing, mods, tweaks and so forth without any updates until the next version comes out. I then upgrade my test database with my mods and tweaks to make sure everything is working with the new version, then upgrade the live site. I use custom themes on my site and since they have to be updated as well to maintain compatibility, I uninstall those before upgrading then reinstall the new version once the upgrade is finished. I found that most of the errors I encountered will upgrading were due to the system trying to process custom templates.

All great info, thanks Replicant!

Out of curiosity, do you ever mess around with the alphas/betas on your test site or do you wait until it's gold to test?

This is one of my dilemmas...and a reason why I'd like vBulletin to allow three installation instances (two of which would be password protected and unavailable to the public). It would be nice to have a replication of the production site for on-going mod/widget/theme development and testing, and another instance to begin testing/troubleshooting the alphas/betas.

Anyone else have best practices you'd like to share?

[Replicant]

I have 5.2.3 A5 installed right now. Testing out a few ideas. I do run the actual release on my test site before I install it to the live site. As far as multiple instances goes, if they are the same version, and the test url is always the same, swapping databases is a snap either by editing the config file or just dumping the mysqldump file into the database.