Getting your site ready for Elgg 1.7 - Part 1

While we are all waiting for the release of 1.7 beta and 1.7 final, I thought I would highlight some things that site admins can do in preparation.

Setup a Test Site

If you are running a production site, you hopefully already have a testing site. This is where you try out new plugins, plugin upgrades, adjustments to your theme, and test out new versions of Elgg. This is done on a testing site so that any change to the production site goes smoothly. If you don't have a testing site, you really should set one up.

You want your test environment to be as close as possible to your production environment. Ideally, the OS should be the same, same web server configuration, same Elgg code. The amount of effort you put into this will likely be determined by your resources and technical skills.

On the test site, you should become comfortable blowing away an old install and making a new one. There are times you may be testing something that corrupts your database. Better to do that on the testing site and be able to blow it away and start over.

You need test users. The simplest solution is to just manually create new users each time and then you control them through different browsers. For more realistic testing, you can clone your production database and load it into your testing site. (You'll also probably want to bring over the data directory.) This is the best way to test new Elgg versions. You can practice the upgrade process on the same exact database and discover any problem areas before upgrading the production site. If you are not familiar with copying a site, you really should read up on the Elgg wiki. You could manually follow the steps outlined there or write your own script so that you can copy your database with a single command.

As an aside, if you do clone your database and start creating new content, beware that emails may be sent out to your actual users from the testing site. To prevent this, you can turn off the mail functions on the server, turn off Elgg's mail function, or use the mail override plugin that I uploaded this week.

Next up: Backing up your site

  • Cash, thank you for starting this. Maybe you should use the Pages instead? It may stay more organized that way. Otherwise, all of your posts will be separate and harder to use.

  • I'll probably move this content to the Elgg wiki when I'm done. In the meanwhile, I'll make sure that each entry has links to the other entries.

Feedback and Planning

Feedback and Planning

Discussions about the past, present, and future of Elgg and this community site.