Global change of url (live to dev)

(Paul Marsden) #1

Hello everyone,

 

I'm probably making a very basic mistake, but I am hoping someone might be able to offer some advice on changing urls within the Matrix administrator. I've read through the manuals and searched the forums but I can't find an answer.

 

Task: Take a copy of a live site and put it on a dev site.

 

Situation:

 

I have a live site 'www'  and our IT guys have put a copy of it onto our dev server 'dev' and they've done all the relevant domain pointing from the web server end.

 

I've logged into the Matrix administrator on 'dev' and added 'dev.' as a domain and also added it to all folders that have a URLs setting as an option.

 

I've then cleared the Matrix cache, Squid cache and run the re-indexing tool. However, when I visit the website dev. some of the links (not all) still point to www.

 

As a further complication, I'm not sure that the Squid cache clearing or the re-indexing tool ever really complete. If I look at the HIPO herder then they seem to get jammed at 3% or similar. Sometimes, however, they seem to disappear immediately, suggesting that the clearing or re-indexing has happened instantly. I'm not convinced by this though.

 

Final fact: I haven't yet removed 'www' as a domain from the 'dev' installation. My reasoning for this is that I'd like to update the www to dev rather than delete www and add dev, in case I end up orphaning some pages.

 

So I have a two-part question:

 

1) Am I following the correct procedure to change the domain within a matrix installation?

 

2) How do I ensure that re-indexing and cache clearing has actually completed?

 

I'm on the latest version of Matrix.

 

Thank you

 

Paul

(Nic Hubbard) #2

What is the reason for putting a copy on dev? When I have done this in the past, I have left all URLs the same, but changed my hosts file to point the domain to the dev server, then everything works without changes. When you are done, just comment out that entry.

(Douglas (@finnatic at @waikato)) #3

"Final fact: I haven't yet removed 'www' as a domain from the 'dev' installation. My reasoning for this is that I'd like to update the www to dev rather than delete www and add dev, in case I end up orphaning some pages."

 

I'm not sure how the orphaning would happen - I'd have thought any links generated by Matrix (via menu_normal or asset_lineage design areas or a=ID links etc) should pick up the dev address and combine that with the webpath for the pages automatically.

 

What you could do is use something like Xenu's Link Sleuth to generate a url listing for the site with both addresses, then remove the www, generate a second site map / url listing and diff the two url listings.