How to upload test site without an access to SSH?

Question

Not sure which forum to ask this question though. Well, I have absolutely zero knowledge in SSH and still learning PHP (very basic knowledge). My website is almost done and needed to be uploaded for a test as it involves payment transaction and some membership system. I've never done this before. Would you please please guide me (in details)in how to:

1. Upload the test site without using the real live URL. Should I go ahead and create some link on cPanel like www.mysitename.com/testsite and then upload the test file into that folder? How do you usually do it?

2. I'm with JustHost at the moment, I've seen so many guys talking about SSH to gain access to privilege setting of the website but with JustHost you have to pay for it in order to create this thing. Does every web designer have to know SSH all these as I'm so thrilled and discouraged to see how complicated it is?

3. Once the real contents have been uploaded on the website (www.mysitename.com), how could I be able to update the website and database without losing the current up and running live data? My website needs some constantly changing in site contents and also in database. How could I merge the live database with the new one while visitors still using the database?

Thank you very much in advance for your reply.

Answer 1

I usually use a subdomain for my non-production sites (and most of the production sites, for that matter). I agree that adding a password is a good idea while testing, as is adding/changing the robots.txt file to keep search engines from snooping too early.

Normally, I use an FTP client (Transmit or Cyberduck on the Mac, Filezilla on the PC) to upload the site and perform any file/folder/permissions/etc. modifications. SSH is certainly not necessary for most web designers/developers in all but the most extreme cases. I've developed many dozens of sites over the years and have only used SSH twice. Even then, I probably could have worked around it.

There a few ways to accomplish the database situation, but I would probably copy the structure of the test database (not the content) and create a new database with the same table structure. Once you're ready to flip the switch, you can rename your old database by appending _TEST or _OLD to the name and make your shiny new database the same name as the old database's original. That would avoid the recoding of those parts of the site.

Again, there are MANY ways to accomplish all of the above, but this is the way I would skin those cats.

Answer 2

You could use an FTP program like Filezilla to connect via SFTP if a more secure connection is required. I use justhost.com and find FTP to be adequate.

Regarding the test site, I usually use the root and secure it via htpassword if it's not supposed to be live yet, otherwise I use a subdomain similarly secured with htpassword.