Deployment

When a site is finished and it’s time to deploy to the live server, there are typically two scenarios:

1. Site will stay on Flywheel (Enterprise Hosting option)
2. Site will move to our Liquid Web Dedicated Server (Standard Hosting option)

Below are the steps required for each scenario, and a set of additional steps required for all situations:

Staying on Flywheel

Note: The steps below assume your development environment is already on Flywheel in the live environment, and that you’re simply changing domain names and launching the website. If you’re moving a site from another hosting environment, you’ll want to use the Duplicator plugin (or something of the sort) to create a Package for migration. Once you have the site slot created on Flywheel, you’ll need to follow the steps outlined in the Duplicator Documentation to migrate your site to Flywheel.

1. If your development environment is not on Flywheel and you still need to create a new environment, first refer to the Creating a Site on Flywheel Documentation
2. Set your primary domain (ie. example-site.com) as the Primary domain
3. Configure your primary domain’s DNS settings to point to Flywheel. Refer to the Domains & DNS Documentation for details.
4. Refer to the Additional Steps below, then continue
5. Turn Off Development Mode in Flywheel
6. Flush Caches to make sure all recent changes are reflected for unauthenticated users (Flywheel’s caches auto-purge every 10mins)
7. If needed in the future for testing new features & major updates, you may enable and utilize the Staging Environment for your Flywheel site. For more information on how to use the Staging Environment, visit Flywheels Staging Environment Documentation.

Moving to Liquid Web Dedicated (cPanel) Server

1. Create an account on the server
   1. Make a new Duplicator Package of your development site
   2. Have an admin (typically Brian Bohrer) provision a new, billable account on the server
   3. Set up a MySQL Database & Database User and import your SQL database file
   4. Follow the steps outlined in the Duplicator Documentation to install your WordPress files in the public_html directory
   5. Refer to the Additional Steps below

Additional Steps

• Use the Better Search Replace plugin under Tools > Better Search Replace to Find/Replace the old development domain (ie. ://example-site.almost.online) to the final live domain (ie. ://example-site.com)
  • * Notice the :// – using this before the domain in your Find/Replace distinguishes it as a URL, regardless of http/https, resulting in a more accurate database search
• Deleting Documentation Components
• Deleting Duplicator Packages & Plugin
• If you’re moving completely away from one hosting environment and no longer need the old environment, please delete those files & databases to save on resource usage.