cPanel, create a WordPress devlopment or staging site

Clone vs. Stage

Creating a clone of a website and creating a staging version are the same except for one difference. A staging version of a website has an additional feature that allows you to click a button and push the staging site back to the source from which it was cloned. Using this feature replaces all content on the target website with the content from the staging site, so it's important to ensure that there are no changes on the live site between when you make the staging copy and when you push the results back to the target. This is best used when you want to quickly test core, plugin, or theme updates, then deploy those changes right away. For longer-term development tasks, a regular clone is preferred.

Preparing your account

1. We recommend that you use a subdomain to create your clone or staging copy of your website. If you do not already have a dev or stage domain, you can create one using the "Domains" feature from your cPanel dashboard.
2. If you are re-using a subdomain that previously had content, we advise that you take the following steps:
   1. Uninstall any wordpress or other software installs in that domain using Softaculous
   2. Delete all files from the document root assigned to that subdomain
3. Verify that the URL listed in the Softaculous settings for the site you wish to clone/stage matches the Site URL and Home URL settings in WordPress (i.e., if you are using a custom domain name, that custom domain name should be in the softaculous settings, not https://accountname.web.illinois.edu)

Creating the clone

1. Navigate to your Softaculous interface
2. Find the WordPress installation that you wish to clone or stage
3. Click the "Clone" or "Stage" button shown in the row that lists the correct installation
   1. 
4. Follow the prompts on screen, but specifically:
   1. In the "Domain" field, choose a dev or stage domain you have available to you (either created while "Preparing your account" or previously created)
   2. We recommend naming the database something descriptive by including _dev or _stage or some other meaningful descriptor in the DB name
   3. For dev and staging sites, we suggest checking the box "disable search engine visibility" and setting the title to something clearly indicating it is the dev version
   4. 
5. Click "Clone Installation" or "Create Staging" depending on which process you chose

Output

There will be a progress bar as the new database is created and populated and the files are copied from the source document root to the target document root. For sites with a large number of files (especially media) this step can take a long time. The progress bar may show "99%" for several minutes, or even an hour or more.

Once the process is complete, the page will reload and have links to the new install and to the pass-through login link to log you in to WordPress as the default administrator.

The list installations page will now show both your original website and the cloned installation

Troubleshooting

1. The clone/stage hangs forever and never shows as complete
   1. Sometimes this is as simple as a disconnect on the front end. Try visiting the URL or the clone and see if the site appears. You may also wish to compare the sizes of the database and/or the contents of the document roots to see if there are missing database records or files.
   2. If the document root wasn't empty when you started the clone process, the clone may hang or outright fail. Try a gain with an empty document root. Remember to re-prepare your account/subdomain. You should also delete the database that was created during the attempt using the "Databases" feature in cPanel.
2. The cloned site may seem to redirect to the source site -- this usually means the Site URL and Home URL variables did not get updated correctly. The usual cause of this is that the URL in Softaculous for the source site doesn't match the SiteURL in WordPress. If you don't know how to fix this, create a ticket at htttps://go.illinois.edu/cpanelhelp and our team will help resolve it for you.