ACT backup of website archived September 2025

Installation

This package installs the following sites:

• oldsite - original wordpress site which became the master for newsite
• newsite - native html/js site extracted from oldsite
• CC - Carbon Cutters site with home page implemented in html/js
• WW - Wildlife Wardens site

The steps to install each site depend on where it is being installed:

• siteground or similar hosting site
• own hosting site such as backups.act.stringerhj.co.uk

Installation on a privately hosted site requires extra steps which should not be needed on siteground, in the following instructions ones that should not be needed if installing on siteground are in italics

Setting up a domain suitable for 3 wordpress installations

It would probably be simplest to create a distinct subdomain for each site, except that the install instructions would be more complex.

I did hit some issues getting internal links to work on backup.act.stringerhj.co.uk the key issue being that nginx doesn't use .htaccess files written by wordpress and so needs equivalent nginx rules. The key issue being that it knows where to find the index.php file for each site.

Siteground is designed to work with wordpress and so does obey .htaccess rules. Examination of the .htaccess files on siteground for oldsite and the main directory suggest that it has suitable configuration. The fact that both oldsite and the main site work strongly suggest that 3 sites in a domain/subdomain will work.

Preliminary steps in sitetools or at the command line

1. Copy the files and directories in this package to the root of an empty domain. (You should have already done this if you are reading this from the site.)
2. Expand newsite.zip and CC.zip to create directories newsite and CC
3. Make the directories CC, WW, oldsite writeable to the web user www-data (not siteground)
4. Create a database for each of CC, WW, oldsite:
   +Create databases in sitetools
   

   In Sitetools

   1. Select mysql, then create database. This will create a database with automatically generated name. note this database name for later.
   2. From the list of databases select the newly created database and from actions change label to something intelligible.

   3. From mysql create a new user for databases associated with your backup subdomain. The create user step will automatically create a password.

      Note the username and password

      Under actions change the label of the new user to make it easy to recognise

   4. Go back to create database and from list add a the user created earlier to the database

   +Create databases at the command line
   

   At the commandline (not sitetools)

   Scripts have been created a suitable user and databases

       
       # the following assumes that you have created a ~/my.cnf file to allow you directly into 
       # mysql with a user with all privileges.
       # make the create databases script executeable
       chmod +x ./create_databases.sh
       ./create_databases.sh
       # this should show 
       
   

Install wordpress

Now you should be able to install wordpress by following the links in this section.

Each wordpress install will require you to enter a database name, user name and password. You should have done this in the previous steps and noted the relevant values

• Newsite - unzip newsite.zip
• Oldsite - Install oldsite
• CC - unzip CC.zip then visit Install CC
• WW - Install WW

Test installed sites

• Newsite
• Oldsite
• CC

  This will take you to the CC wordpress site, rather than the html home page which contains links to the original site and so gets redirected

• WW

Suggested tests and Trouble shooting

1. Test - In the dashboard test that everything you expect appears and that pages and posts can be edited

   Expected result - Everything is present and pages and posts can be edited

2. Test - View the site and try navigating to a post or normal page to view it

   Expected result - Pages and posts should be viewable

   Errors and corrective action - It is possibe that permalinks need resetting, you can do this in the dashboard by visiting Settings -> Permalinks and saving the page. This will rewrite the rules in the .htaccess file. stringerhj.co.uk uses pure nginx which needs rules setting manually in the server block. Hopefully this won't be necessary on siteground.

Outstanding issues

The following issues will need fixing to make these backups into fully working sites:

• Many links to external resources link legacy positions so will be redirected to the redirect page.
• Embedded maps do not work, the links from these will need fixing.