Add content to a VIP Local Development Environment
After a VIP Local Development has been created and is running, SQL files can be imported to the database, media files can be uploaded, and media requests can be redirected to a site’s production environment.
SQL database
- Full SQL database backups for VIP Platform environments can be downloaded on demand in the VIP Dashboard. Backups include custom tables, and are suitable for use in a local development environment.
- For environment’s with Database Backup Shipping enabled, shipped backups include custom tables and are suitable for use in a local development environment.
Prepare the SQL file for import
The SQL file for import must be located on the local machine under the home directory of the current user.
For example, the local path for a SQL file named file.sql for a current user named “current-user”:
Mac: /Users/current-user/file.sql
Windows: C:\Users\
current-user
\file.sql
Ubuntu: /home/
current-user
/file.sql
The SQL database file can be verified that it is correctly formatted for import with the VIP-CLI command:vip import validate-sql <path/to/file.sql>
CREATE DATABASE
or USE
statements in the SQL file will cause validation errors and the import will fail. Remove the lines where those statements appear prior to import.
Import a SQL file to the local environment
Use the import sql
command to import a SQL database file. The file can include one or more specific tables, or an entire SQL database for a site.
In this example, the command is importing a SQL database named file.sql, and the command is run from within the same local directory as the file:
vip dev-env import sql file.sql
A --search-replace
operation can be run during the import to update domain name values to match the site of the local development environment.
In this example, the value example-site.com
will be replaced with example-site.lndo.site
during the import of file.sql to the local environment “example-site”:
vip --slug=example-site dev-env import sql file.sql --search-replace="example-site.com,example-site.lndo.site"
Additional search-replace
operations may be necessary after the import is complete. To accurately run a search-replace
operation, the command structure will depend on whether the search-replace
is targeting an entire single site, multisite, or specific tables.
As part of the import process, the import sql
command will automatically:
- Clear the object cache.
- Add a WordPress user to the site with default login credentials.
Media files
The VIP Local Development Environment does not have a File System replica, so all images are served locally. If data is imported and URLs search-replaced, these will likely 404 unless the corresponding media is placed in the container filesystem.
To address that we have introduced the concept of Media Redirect Domain. This domain can be set with the --media-redirect-domain
parameter to the create
subcommand. If set, any requests returning 404
for a resource within uploads directory will be redirected to the media redirect domain – e.g. production site domain.
Images can be uploaded via WordPress functionality, and those should be accessible. The uploads directory is also mapped to the host machine and can be found within a location of the environment.
$ vip dev-env info NAME example-site LOCATION /home/wpvip/.local/share/vip/dev-environment/example-site SERVICES devtools, nginx, php, database, memcached, phpmyadmin, vip-search, statsd, wordpress NGINX URLS http://example-site.vipdev.lndo.site/ STATUS DOWN
$ ls -al /home/wpvip/.local/share/vip/dev-environment/example-site total 28 drwxrwxr-x 5 wpvip wpvip 4096 aug 23 09:01 . drwxrwxr-x 7 wpvip wpvip 4096 aug 20 15:55 .. drwxrwxr-x 2 wpvip wpvip 4096 aug 23 09:10 config -rw-rw-r-- 1 wpvip wpvip 4449 aug 16 09:46 .lando.yml drwxr-xr-x 2 wpvip wpvip 4096 jun 18 09:04 log drwxr-xr-x 3 wpvip wpvip 4096 aug 16 09:48 uploads