In the course of the life of a PrestaShop store, an owner will certainly have to migrate his store to a new server. It could be for scalability or even better service to you. Usually web hosts offer a free web migration service to their platform. No matter the reason for migrating your PrestaShop store, this task can be complex for anyone lacking in knowledge. But really, the task is easily accomplished if you know a little about it or if you follow a good guide like ours.
PrestaShop migration to another server
Essentials for PrestaShop migration
Before proceeding with the migration of your PrestaShop store, we recommend to put the store in maintenance mode. Thus, a visitor will not lose their data if they visit your site aware of the migration.
It will also be necessary to verify that the destination server is compatible with PrestaShop. You can check this by reading our article on installing PrestaShop.
Exporting the store
A functional PrestaShop installation consists of two main sets: files and database. We will therefore export these two parts to the computer using the FTP client. In this sense, the administration panels usually include tools to perform file backup. It is this backup that we will download to the machine. Go to the public folder of your website to create an archive and download it to your machine using your FTP client.
Likewise for the database, use the available tool to create a .sql archive and download it to your computer. You can always seek advice from your web host who will certainly help you. Please note that this download will take some time depending on the size of your files and database.
Import to the new server
The archives are ready to be uploaded to the new hosting. We will do the reverse of the procedure for exporting from the old server. Find the public folder of your installation where you will upload the files archive. Then, unzip the archive to reveal the files.
Do the same for the database. However, first we will create a new database that we will populate with the archive taken from the previous server. Ideally, the information in this database should not be changed to reduce the following configurations.
Updating configuration files
If you had to change the database information (name, user, password, etc.), you will have to update the public_folder / config / settings.inc.php file. This change will link the new database to the installation of PrestaShop.
Checking permissions
The last step in the migration of your PrestaShop store will be to verify that each file has the correct permissions. The general rule being:
- File permissions: 644
- File permissions: 755
After this step, the migration should be completed successfully. So remember to empty your browser cache and force a new indexing of your site to be able to see the result.