One of the strengths of most any php-based application or CMS is its ability to be easily moved or updated. XOOPS can easily be migrated from one server to another -- as a new deployment or an upgrade to an existing installation. I do it all the time as I do development and testing (and production) in separate environments, sometimes on the same server, sometimes on a different server with the same setup, and sometimes in a different environment than production. The last version is the one that takes more work, but generally it can be done. In the latter setup, I also do a test deployment setup on the same server under a different domain to test the deployment process before deploying to the production server.
This is
the server migration process that I generally use:
Migrating/Replace XOOPS to New Site
1. Export the database - use delete table (in case you have to reload the database more than once)
2. tar/gzip the entire site (include XOOPS_TRUSTED_PATH of course)
3. Create database/use for new site (if not already setup)
4. Search/Replace hard-coded local URLs in SQL script (make URLs relative!; search web/file paths)
- Domains: dev.mydomain.com
- Emails: @mydomain.com (most, but not all, so do one-by-one)
- Paths: /home/myaccount/public_html
- _MI_XI_REFERER (fix data as appropriate)
5. Import database to new site (convert latin1 to utf8 as appropriate)
6. Untar files in new site
7. Fix symlinks for cache/template directories
8. Fix mainfile.php with new database, XOOPS root path/url, trusted, etc.
9. Fix .htaccess with new domain/url (if used)
To make sure it's easily deployable to another server, ensure all URLs on your site relative
Now, if you are updating an existing site, that gets harder but is manageable done right. I posted a
process for upgrading a 2.0.x site to 2.3.x (never worked with 2.2.x, so no help from me there).
Hope that helps.