Creating a dummy store

I have a store that works fine however, i would like to add some interesting add-ons to it, but i dont want to risk messing up what i managed to get working fine. How do i get to create a "dummy store" to test run any change or add-on?

Someone was mentioning something about Apachetriad, but i have NO CLUE what it is or how it works. Any suggestion?

I just create a "clone" of my real store, then either put it onto my "dev" system, of just stick it into a sub-directory****** of the working site.

I've managed to make a full working clone of a complex website with 4000 products (into a sub-directory) in a little over 6 minutes...

**With added .htaccess and .htpasswd restrictions.

Yeah, i can do that, but do i just copy and paste into a new directory and that is it? Shouldn't i run an install for the new store?

Somewhere on this forum (a couple of weeks ago) I posted the procedure to do this.

No... no "install run" needed. The original store was "installed", so whatever you "clone" will also be "installed".

basically, the process involves:

1. Create a database with a different name (easy in Cpanel) and then in phpMyAdmin COPY your live database into it.

2. COPY the zc folders/files in the root, to a sub-directory (quick & easy in Cpanel)

3. EDIT the two configure.php files to reflect the PATH and DATABASE changes.

4. CHMOD all folders/files to required settings

5. Run fix_cache_key.php to sort our cache ref in dbase.

That's it

Ok i THINK i can do that. Sorry if the question was asked before, i guess the search i did, didn`t direct me to that thread.
Now, just waiting for my store/sites/blog/mail/control panel to be accessible (hopefully a short maintenance on the host)

I would add that these stores will be identical twins the first time you open them up, and (as I have discovered to my regret on several occasions), if you don't act quickly to make them NON-identical twins, you can find yourself doing the testing on the live site, and the legitimate required changes on the cloned site.

So, one of the FIRST things I do is load up NEW LOGOS - for both the admin panel AND the webshop in the clone...

These logos say THIS IS THE CLONE OF xxxxxxxxxx and the logos are just big, red banners!

Ohhhhh.. good idea!!

CaroleAs:

Ok i THINK i can do that. Sorry if the question was asked before, i guess the search i did, didn`t direct me to that thread.
Now, just waiting for my store/sites/blog/mail/control panel to be accessible (hopefully a short maintenance on the host)

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136447

schoolboy:

Somewhere on this forum (a couple of weeks ago) I posted the procedure to do this.

No... no "install run" needed. The original store was "installed", so whatever you "clone" will also be "installed".

basically, the process involves:

1. Create a database with a different name (easy in Cpanel) and then in phpMyAdmin COPY your live database into it.

2. COPY the zc folders/files in the root, to a sub-directory (quick & easy in Cpanel)

3. EDIT the two configure.php files to reflect the PATH and DATABASE changes.

4. CHMOD all folders/files to required settings

5. Run fix_cache_key.php to sort our cache ref in dbase.

That's it

Hummm... what does that mean?? :dontgetit
I am stuck there, i think.

Change the permissions on the folders/files. You should be able to do that either with your FTP client or from your webmaster panel (CPanel, most likely). It's usually best to do it through your webmaster panel. You want to limit access to the folders to most of the world. Most folders should be set to 755. Some will need to be set to less depending on the setup of your server. If there's a problem with the setting, Zen Cart may display an error message about being able to write to a certain file or folder.

OK maybe i did something wrong along the way, but when i created my new database, i was not prompted to set a username and password. Can i go back and do it? Is it set without me knowing it? So at this point, i am not sure where i am anymore :(

You should be able to go back into your webmaster panel and assign a user and password for the database.

Is there a way to go back and check the password of previous dbase? I am getting kind of lost in all those passwords and would like to make SURE i am using the exact same one.

When i asked my host if i could recover the password for the previous database, here was the answer:

"There is no way to recover these passwords. You need to delete the database user and then re-add it."

I kind of guessed that but wanted to make sure. Now, if i delete the database user and re-add it (with a known password) how will this affect my LIVE store??

Your /includes/configure.php will have the database user and password for your original db, as it needs to use them.

If you change user/password, change the /includes/configure.php and /admin/includes/configure.php to match.

CaroleAs:

if i delete the database user and re-add it (with a known password) how will this affect my LIVE store??

Your live store will disappear :D and in its place nddbc.html will display

Do what Glenn says above, to find out what the passwd is.

Ok i did it. I have a clone of my store, but i have two little questions:

1- how do i access to the admin now? since i didn`t change anything other than the store is now called storetest, i thought i would use the exact same link while correcting this store name, but when i do, i get this error message:

0 DB_ERROR_NOT_CONNECTED
in:
[db_cache table]
If you were entering information, press the BACK button in your browser and re-check the information you had entered to be sure you left no blank fields.

Did i forget something along the way?

Second question: how can i make sure that nobody visits the site an mistakenly tries to order something?

Cassel

Did you run fix_cache_key.php in the new, copied store?

Also, if you try to access both copies of the site in the same browser session (using browser TABS), you can get a session confusion problem.

Where do i find the fix_cache_key.php file?

I found the file, and copied it to my storetest directory and ran it. It seemed to work and said Finished, without any error message, but then, i still cannot access the admin window.

Then, i thought i might have put it in the wrong place and i put it in the storetest/cache directory (where the index file is), and from there, it would not even let me run it in my browser.

I am sure i forget something tiny that prevents it from working. But what is it?