Best XAMPP sync with Host strategy?

[zenorb]

Hi.
New to XAMPP and very enthusiastic about the potential.
I get the impression that it's ideal for a local site implementation for development and testing purposes which is exactly what I wanted to avoid inherent internet lag. Also additionaly security of a locally stored backup.

Questions -
Q1.1: What's the best strategy for having local XAMPP sites based on apps such as Joomla, Drupal, SugarCRM etc. and have an easy methodology to quickly sync them with remote shared Internet Hosts such as HostMonster? - is there a straightforward system to do this? Is it just the HTML folder and MySQL database that need to be synced or am I missing something?

Q1.2: How do you sync only changed HTML folders and directories so you don't waste a lot of time overwriting everything? - an FTP queue rewriting hundreds or thousands of files unecessarily could take hours or days.

Q1.3: Is it safe to upload or sync a XAMPP versin SQL database to a production shared host or am I importing security holes I'm not aware of?

Q2.1: I was delighted to see how easy it seemed to be to create a local XAMPP copy of a production hosted Joomla install. I downloaded the HTML folder (copy to htdocs) and the SQL db. I got the database username and password from the configuartion.php file and was able to import the data using PHPMyAdmin and voila an exact local high speed copy of my Joomla site - perfect, almost. Only problem is the administration section of the site does not accept my login name and password that work on the live site so I can't login and make any changes on the local XAMPP version of the site. What am I missing here? - if it's a copy of the same database why doesn't it have the username and password of the Joomla admin?

There must be heaps of clever people doing exactly what I'm talking about. I just haven't quite worked out the most elegant and efficient way to do it.

Please help.

Thanks
Sean

[Altrea]

Hi zenorb,

Q1.1: What's the best strategy for having local XAMPP sites based on apps such as Joomla, Drupal, SugarCRM etc. and have an easy methodology to quickly sync them with remote shared Internet Hosts such as HostMonster? - is there a straightforward system to do this? Is it just the HTML folder and MySQL database that need to be synced or am I missing something?

If you want to have as less trouble as possible you should first choose the XAMPP version which comes as near to your hosting server as possible. If your Hoster uses PHP 5.2.X, then XAMPP 1.7.1 is the better solution then XAMPP 1.7.3 or XAMPP 1.7.4. Then you should configure your components like your Hoster is confirgured (or nearly the same). Thats all just to prevent incompatibilities.
Syncing isn't difficult and depends on how near your configuration came to the one of your hoster:
- copy all file data (.html, .php, .css, .js, ...) to the host
- export your database and reimport it with the database of your hoster
- maybe changing the configuration of the applications is needed too (changing urls, database data, ...)

Q1.2: How do you sync only changed HTML folders and directories so you don't waste a lot of time overwriting everything? - an FTP queue rewriting hundreds or thousands of files unecessarily could take hours or days.

FTP is really quick and just depends to your internet speed and the speed of your hosting server. I can upload some thousand files (like in Joomla or Wordpress) in minutes. But your FTP program should ask you, what to do with files that already exists, too. Or you choose the right folders or files by hand.

Q1.3: Is it safe to upload or sync a XAMPP versin SQL database to a production shared host or am I importing security holes I'm not aware of?

SQL Database data is really safe. You should be more awared of your .php data

Q2.1: I was delighted to see how easy it seemed to be to create a local XAMPP copy of a production hosted Joomla install. I downloaded the HTML folder (copy to htdocs) and the SQL db. I got the database username and password from the configuartion.php file and was able to import the data using PHPMyAdmin and voila an exact local high speed copy of my Joomla site - perfect, almost. Only problem is the administration section of the site does not accept my login name and password that work on the live site so I can't login and make any changes on the local XAMPP version of the site. What am I missing here? - if it's a copy of the same database why doesn't it have the username and password of the Joomla admin?

Don't know. That should work the way you do.

Best wishes,
Altrea

[JonB]

Two things I will add after Altrea's comments:

There are a variety of FTP-Sync products. I have used a couple of the commercial ones.
I liked this one - Best Sync (its 'made in China', but they have good, prompt e-mail support on their paid version)
http://www.risefly.com/
I also use it to do scheduled backup/sync on workstations and servers.

There are also tools/methods to sync or master/slave MySQL databases. These are beyond the scope and needs of most folks, particularly if you are really just sync'ing the database to have a working copy for development. Webmin (for linux/Unix on VPS's) includes an automated scheduler for MySQL database backups. It backs up to a local (server) location, and you can then just ftp the latest copy when you want it.

Good Luck

[zenorb]

This is very helpful gents.

Thanks to both of you for pointing me in the right direction.

Ideally I'd like to come up with a clear procedural stratgey of building and modifying sites locally using XAMPP and automate or simplyfy as much as possible the procedure of uploading the updates to a shared hosting environment.

What I'm talking about to me sounds like site developers nirvana or is their a better way?

Here in Australia my internet is not the best while I wait a few more years for the NBN (FTTH National Broadband Network - very exciting). I'm two k's from the exchange and both services drop out once every hour. Drive's me nuts. I have dual high speed DSL services on a multi WAN router but they don't perfrom that well. Being a prolific P2P user probably doesn't help. I'm trying to download the internet. I digress so will stop bleeting on. My point is none of this is likely an issue for those of you with super fast shit hot internet connections but mine are slow and unreliable.

I'd be most grateful if someone could give me the best way to do this.

Any additional comments on best FTP sync products or SQL syncing tools?

Anyone with any ideas on my Q2.1 problem with not being able to login to the Joomla Administration back end with the same Admin account and password that works on the original hosted site? - that's got me quite baffled - and stuck unfortunately. Not much use having a local XAMPP copy I cant' touch.


Cheers
SS

[zenorb]

I'm after the most elegant and efficient way to have fast local LAN (XAMPP) based production environments that can be readily updated to the live shared Host environment if such a scenario is feasible.

A concern I haven't worked out is being able to cater for and sync the live site MySQL db changes if people are adding new comments or content. Having to take a snapshot and freeze the live host site, download the sql db, make changes and re-upload all sounds way too cumbersome.

I was making the assumption that some or many site developers use XAMPP for local production environments but then have the issue of syncing with shared hosts.