Migrate site content

Migrate content from an existing WordPress site over to the WPVIP Platform.

You should set aside several days in the launch preparation schedule to complete and verify the results of content migration. The larger the amount of data and media files that need to be migrated, the more time will be required to complete the migration and verification processes.

Migrate site content with WXR files

Content and media files from an existing WordPress site can be migrated to the WPVIP Platform with a WordPress-generated WXR file. WXR files can be imported with the WordPress Importer plugin, which is already provisioned and enabled on all WordPress sites via VIP MU plugins.

WXR files can only be imported with the WordPress Importer plugin, and not with the WP-CLI wp import command.

Migrating content with WXR files works well for sites with smaller amounts of content. If the amount of content to be migrated is too large for the WordPress Importer tool to complete successfully, an “Allowed memory size exhausted” error will occur. As an alternative, the site’s content can be migrated by importing SQL database files and media files with VIP-CLI.

Go to WordPress.org to read more about importing WXR files

Migrate site content with VIP-CLI

SQL database files and media files from an existing WordPress site can be migrated to the WPVIP Platform with VIP-CLI. To use VIP-CLI for content migration, you will need to have a user account for the VIP Dashboard with at least an Org member role or an App write role for the application. You will also need to install VIP-CLI on your local machine and authenticate with your VIP Dashboard user account.

Read more about installing VIP-CLI

Database migration

Begin by exporting a SQL database file from your existing WordPress site. The site’s host provider might have built-in tooling to provide a database export for you. Alternatively, the database file can be exported by a WordPress plugin, a mysqldump command, or with phpMyAdmin.

Read more about exporting a SQL file from a non-VIP WordPress install

Use VIP-CLI to import the SQL database file to your WPVIP environment. You can use a VIP-CLI command to validate the SQL database file on your local machine before you import it to ensure that the import will go smoothly.

Read more about importing database files with VIP-CLI

Media file migration

The media files for your site—files located within /wp-content/uploads/—will also need to be exported from your current host provider. Once you have a copy of the media files, you can use VIP-CLI to import the media files to your WPVIP environment with. For a team member to run the import, they must have at least an Org member role or an App write role in the VIP Dashboard for the site’s application.

On most WordPress host providers, files uploaded through the WordPress Media Library will generate separate “intermediate” image files for an array of registered image sizes (e.g., thumbnail, medium, large). When intermediate image files are generated, metadata associated with the files is stored in the site’s database. To ensure that your migration to WPVIP goes as smoothly as possible, we recommend that intermediate files are included in your media file migration.

To ensure that the original image files and all of their intermediate image files are imported, include the -i flag when running the vip import media VIP-CLI command. This ensures that any URLs for intermediate files in your imported database will resolve correctly.

Read more about importing media files with VIP-CLI

After you complete your migration and launch, separate intermediate files will no longer be generated for images uploaded to your WPVIP site. Instead, only the original file will be uploaded to the VIP File System and requested sizes for the image will be dynamically resized.

Read more about image file behavior on WPVIP