Moving from GoDaddy to DreamHost

For the last few years, sindark.com has been hosted with GoDaddy – a firm I chose because they were inexpensive and seemed to have a decent reputation. Since then, I have had a number of problems with them. As a result, I decided not to extend my hosting contract with them, and to shift this site over to DreamHost, another hosting provider.

Non-technical people thinking of moving sites, be warned. It is not a painless process. In my case, it involved an awful lot of messing around in command prompts and hair pulling.

The trickiest thing is moving the MySQL databases that actually store WordPress posts and comments. For databases that are small, you can use a web interface to upload them to DreamHost. For larger databases, you need to export the old MySQL file, download it, upload it to your root folder on DreamHost via FTP, login to their server using ssh, create an empty database using their web interface, and then execute a command like this:

mysql -h mysql.examplesite.com -u exampleusername -pexamplepassword newdatabasename < olddatabasefile.sql

While I am sure that is all no big deal for some savvier tech types out there, the whole process was frustrating and a bit scary for me.

Please let me know if you are encountering any problems with the new setup. I know that – for some mysterious reason – photos of the day won’t load in Opera Mobile.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here. View all posts by Milan