Staging/Dev sites are convenient when you want to test an update or try out a new plugin on your site before making the change live. This is also necessary when so many plugins or themes exist that there are bound to be conflicts or faults that can cause something to stop working, or worse, crash a site.
The Convesio platform does not currently support staging or dev sites in the traditional sense, but it is in the future pipeline. In the meantime, there is a simple, stress-free workaround to create a staging site.
Creating from a Backup
If you need information on creating a backup, please see the article Backup, Restoring and Cloning a Site.
- Log into your Convesio dashboard and go to the site dashboard that you wish to create a dev site for.
- Once logged in, go to the BACKUPS tab on the dashboard.
- Once backups are made, they will be listed in the column on the left. Go ahead and select the backup you want to clone based on the time and date (you may want an older or a more recent backup depending on your needs).
- Once you select a backup, information is populated on the right, and two (2) buttons appear; Restore Snapshot and Delete. Select the Restore Snapshot button for a list of options.
- Choose the option Create new site from Snapshot.
- Once done, a new site at a new UUID will be created. The new UUID is a copy of your live site.
Create a New Site
This option can be used if you do not wish to create a replica of your live site but need an environment to play around with and test themes, plugins, or setups.
- Log into your Convesio dashboard.
- Once logged in, you will see the button in the top right-hand corner that says New Site.
- Click the button, and a popup will appear with the option to choose the PHP and WordPress versions if needed (by default, the latest versions of both are chosen). Click Deploy once finished.
- The Job Console will appear running the process of creating your new site. Once complete, simply hit the Close Job Console button.
- You will see that a new site with a new UUID has been created and added to your dashboard.
- Click on the UUID, and it will take you through the process of installing WordPress on the new site.
NOTE:
Some users may not like having the UUID as a link since it can be long and tedious to remember, especially if not wanting to use the Convesio dashboard to log in. Or you may create multiple sites and have multiple UUIDs, and it gets confusing trying to remember which site is which.
There is the option to add a dummy domain to the site you created. For example, if your site is yoursite.com, you could add the domain dev.yoursite.com to the new site and make it the primary domain. You may need to add a new A record or CNAME to your DNS settings for it.