How to Move Your CS-Cart Shop to a New Host

What happens in a move?

A shop has two parts. The first part is the files, like the pictures and the code. The second part is the database. A database is where the shop keeps products, orders and customers. You must move both.

Take a backup first. Keep your old site online until the new one works.

Steps

1. On the old host, open your control panel and go to File Manager.
2. Select all the shop files and choose Compress to make one zip file. Download it to your computer.
3. Open phpMyAdmin. This is a tool to manage databases. Click your shop's database on the left.
4. Click Export, choose the Quick method and click Go. A .sql file downloads.
5. On the new host, create an empty database and a database user. Give the user all privileges on it. Write down the database name, user name and password.
6. Open phpMyAdmin on the new host. Click the new database, then Import. Choose your .sql file and click Go.
7. Upload the zip file to the new host with File Manager, in the folder where your site should live. Then Extract it.
8. Open config.local.php in the main folder. Change the database name, user and password to the new ones. If your domain or folder changed, update the host and path lines too.
9. Clear the cache. Delete the files inside the var/cache folder.
10. Check that the folders var and images can be written to. Ask support if you are unsure which permission to use.
11. Test the new site using a temporary link or by editing your computer's hosts file. Place a test order.
12. When all is fine, change your domain's nameservers or DNS records to point to the new host. DNS is the internet phone book that tells browsers where your site lives.

Quick recap

• Back up files and the database.
• Import the database on the new host.
• Upload the files and update config.local.php.
• Clear the cache and test.
• Point your domain to the new host last.