Move phplists to another domain, what must i take care of

ℹ️ Support
1

Hi,

I want to move phplists installs to another domain, what is the best way to do that?
I have full access to the os (linux with apache/nginx).

Copy the webspace, copy the DB, edit the config.php?
What about the links inside the DB?

Is there an “easy” way?

regards,
Jan

2

HI @Janvl,
You would want to zip up your ‘lists’ directory, move it, and then unzip in it’s new home.
If you can access your database from the new location, no moving of the database is needed. If you can’t access it, you would want to do a backup of your database, and move it to the new location. Then restore your database, create the phpList database user and password, give it permissions on the database.

Go to the ‘settings’ page on the web admin interface, and change the domain values towards the top of the page, and also verify that all the references to the old domain are changed to the new domain (unsubscribe page, etc… further down the page).

Then you can send yourself a new test email or test campaign, and verify that you did not miss anything.

Dan

3

Thank you Dan,

I often move webapps, copy webspace and databases.
Just never had to do thhis for phplists.

Since there are links to the domain in the database, I wondered if this is not going to give trouble.
One install is just a test and was still empty, so that one will be a new install, is easier.

The other one will move to another (Sub-)Domainname.

Regards,
Jan

4

Moving phpList to a new domain will ‘break’ any existing click track links.
I usually leave the old one in place, and ‘copy’ the system to a new location. Going to the setting page and editing things like the domain name, forward page url, etc. will change the database settings for future campaigns.

5

Thanks Dan,

the install concerned is mine, I just use it to quickly send mail to groups of 20 to 80 people no clicktracking etc. just to keep a routine in using phplists.
Every now and then i have a customer using it for a while because it is way better then any cms-module.

Regards,
Jan

6

If the old server is running Apache, I’m thinking it should be possible to leave just a modified .htaccess file in the root of the old phpList installation, using mod_rewrite to redirect (301) all links to the same path at the new domain. My main concern is ensuring that even old “unsubscribe” links work, but not breaking click tracking would be nice too.

Given that I’m moving from the subdomain of one parent domain to a different subdomain of a different parent domain, I’ve been hoping something like this (untested code) would work…

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^lists.olddomain.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://newsletter.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

That way there’s no old phpList code left sitting around and it doesn’t use much disk space.

Anyway, this is what I’m hoping to do for the phpList move I’ve been slowly inching my way toward.

7

That sounds like a good idea. Let us know how it works.

Another approach is to point the dns of old server (lists.olddomain.com) to the new server, and setup a virtual host in apache with the old phpList software, Both installations would share the same database.

In this scenario, the old campaign clicks would still be working.

1 Like
8

maybe on the old domain you could make redirects to the new ones, just an idea.

Or send out a newstetter explaining that old unsubscribe-links are not usable, in that newsletter you will have the new unsubscribe link.

Regards,
Jan