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It’s often useful to make copies of entire websites, so that you can safely test changes to them without affecting the live version. Cito supports Cloning sites, including files and databases, to a new domain. You can also replace an existing site with a clone, which is useful if you want to take a copy of a site and keep it up to date. To clone a site, click on the settings menu in the site card, then ‘Clone’. You can select from two options:
  • Create a new site
  • Replace an existing site (overwrite)
You can also choose a database to clone from the dropdown menu. Clone Step 1 If you choose the Replace option, you’ll be prompted to select the site you are replacing from a drop-down menu. You’ll then be prompted to enter a new domain, and SSH username for your site. It’s a good idea to call this staging.yourdomain.com or clone.yourdomain.com. You can also choose a PHP version for the site, which can be different to the one your site already runs.

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Cloning databases

You can also duplicate databases as part of the Clone process. This also creates a new database user and password for the cloned database. We’ll try and automatically detect the database in use and pre-populate it’s name. You can modify this field yourself if you wish. It is also possible to clone multiple databases at once. Clone Step 2

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Replace URLs in DB

This feature replaces any instance of the old site’s URL with the new one, in the cloned database. This is useful if you’re cloning a site which relies on a base URL (e.g. Wordpress) and want to change it automatically.

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Auto-reconfigure

This feature will try and automatically update a site’s configuration file (e.g. wp-config.php for Wordpress) with the details of the newly-cloned database.

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Caveats and gotchas

  • The clone tool does not copy cron jobs. These can often have adverse effects when run incorrectly so we do not duplicate them. This should be done manually.
  • If you are not running Wordpress, we will not automatically select a database, but you can choose one from the dropdown menu.