Getting your website live means moving it from localhost to an online host that will make it available from anywhere in the world. The Official Joomla Book shows you the basic things you have to do to make this happen in a short comprehensive article.
Keep in mind you will need to use tools such as Php and MySQL for some of the site’s features.
Of course, you can only go about following the instructions on this article after you already have your website built on your computer, which is your localhost. If you want to know how to do this, feel free to check our blog for a step-by-step guide for building your Joomla website.
Back it Up
Make a backup of the website’s version you have on your localhost. The reason we recommend doing the backup before going live is that the process might cause some information or set-ups to be altered.
Use an FTP Client to Get your Files and Directories Live
Since you already have a built website, you will need to copy all the files and the directories you have on your localhost into the live server of your choosing. If you don’t know what hosting service to use to get into a live server, we suggest checking out https://internetvikings.net for their wonderful services.
Doing this through an FTP software or client makes it easier. This is a piece of software that is used as a tool to perform file transfer easily between computers and servers that works entirely online.
Copy your Database from Localhost to Live Server
This is only a simple process of exporting MySQL database you have on your localhost. You go about this by going to the PhpMyAdmin tool and after choosing your site’s database you click on Export with the custom option.
Adjust your Configuration
Adjusting your Joomla configuration file will enable you to get your website URL and database, tmp, and log directory paths. The way you do this is by opening your configuration.php file after finding it through the live server by checking your root folder for the Joomla live server.
Once you have your configuration file open, you need to find the lines that refer to your database and enter all the values you have. After this, you go to the domain part of the code and configure it to show your website’s live URL.
Then you are ready for the final step, which is editing your tmp and log path codes, keeping in mind that they should be different when you go from localhost to live server.
After doing all things, your website will be uploaded to a live server and you can always change things as you go. The idea is that you follow these instructions as closely as you can because any little detail missing will hurt the outcome.
It might seem a bit tricky, but it is only a matter of getting to practice it as much as you need.