Setting up an existing website in MAMP

[NickyM39]

In order to upgrade frp, Joomla 3 to Joomla 4, I've set up a dummy site in MAMP and familiarised myself with a lot of the features of Joomla 4.4 and the upgrade path, converting a 3.10 site with php 7.4 to Joomla 4.4 with php 8.2.and making adjustments to the template and positions, updating extensions as necessary. Now I'm ready to work on my actual website which is in Joomla 3.9 and 7.4. I've done site backups and database dumps.

What I don't understand clearly is: how to bring this site into MAMP. I move the files into ht.docs. Then I create a database (with generic details or details identical to those of my online database?), then I import my database using php myadmin or what? I'm just a bit woolly about all this and about necessary changes in php and/or htaccess files. Would someone please be an angel and give me step-by-step instructions, understanding that I am not a systems administrator or a computer scientist?

Two tangential questions are: 1) can I move my existing MAMP folder from Applications, to save my experimental work, and start a new MAMP folder to work on my actual website? 2)my actual webspace public.html has a few websites in it. There is an old static website at the top level and two Joomla websites as subdomains. Is it a bad idea to import the whole public_html folder into MAMP? Would it be better to just wimport the most important and extensive of the Joomla sites? Or would I easily be able to work on both Joomla sites in MAMP?

Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

[gws]

Make yourself aware of the extension Akeeba,it is the easiest way to backup and restore joomla sites.
https://www.akeeba.com/products/akeeba-backup.html You do not need pro just to backup and move sites.

[AMurray]

As mentioned by @webdongle, Akeeba Backup (and its companion Kickstart) are the easiest. See https://docs.joomla.org/Copying_a_Joomla_website and use the Akeeba method outlined there.

But the above also outlines how to do the manual copy e.g. import/export the database, and FTP (download) the Joomla system files to your MAMP setup.

[JAVesey]

What I don't understand clearly is: how to bring this site into MAMP. I move the files into ht.docs.

MAMP or MAMP Pro?

Several versions ago, MAMP Pro expects sites/files to be in the [username]/Sites folder rather than /htdocs

If you’re moving manually, you need to edit your configuration.php file so that the filepaths are correct.

[NickyM39]

I had already read that article. Make sure that configuration.php has the right settings for the server (especially:localhost, database, database user, database password, log_path, tmp_path)". The problem is when I want to change the values in configuration.php, I don't know what to change them to. I created a new database in phpmyadmin, but it did not give me any options for setting the db name, username, password etc.. This might be because I already have a humby practise site set up in a folder in htdocs, and I am trying to set up my real downloaded website in another folder in htdocs. Before I got the option to schoose all these details about the database when I did a fresh install of Joomla in MAMP. I had also successfully imported my database dump into the newly created datbase—I can see all the files are there, but I still don't know how to alter ths configuration. php file. I hope I'm making myself clear. I am not technically trained, and I am learning all this the hard way. Many thanks.

[NickyM39]

Thank you John V, I used to live in Cardiff. I am on MAMP not MAMP PRO, and trying to upgrade a site from Humla 3.9 to 4.4. and php 7.4 to 8.2. Please see my reply to A Murray, explaining my problem, I hope clearly. I need to know what values to enter into configuration.php, and in order to do that I need to be able to set up the database with a name, username, password etc. Is there no way to do that in MAMP's phpmyadmin when you're setting up a second site within htdocs? I also don't understand whether these details as previously set up for my site in the database in my JustHost account have now become irrelevant? I'm a bit baffled by the whole operation. Understand that I had already successfully set up a Joomla site from scratch in MAMP—it's the importing bit that's got me. Many thanks for any detailed advice you can give.

[NickyM39]

I quote "You'll first need to create the new, empty database on your server using the account control panel. It needs to be UTF8 (utf8_general_ci).". In MAMP there doesn't seem to be an account control panel" It seems the only way I can create a new empty database is in phpMyAdmin, but I can't enter any of the defining details there. This seems to me to be my problem, but perhaps I'm wrong! Many thanks and all the best!

[JAVesey]

It seems the only way I can create a new empty database is in phpMyAdmin, but I can't enter any of the defining details there. This seems to me to be my problem, but perhaps I'm wrong!

Hi, and sorry for the slow reply…

In configuration.php you’ll need to set:

Code: Select all

	public $log_path = '/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/administrator/logs';
		public $tmp_path = '/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/tmp';
		public $host = 'localhost';
		public $db = ‘your database name';
		public $dbprefix = ‘your database prefix_';
		public $user = ‘your database username’;

I haven’t used MAMP for a while (MAMP Pro uses a different folder for site files) so check that the paths above are correct for you.

You may also need to specify the database user password for your database user (depends on your setup). You can set up your database users in phpMyAdmin. Make sure that you assign all priviledges to your user, etc.

HTH

[NickyM39]

Thank you so much, John. I had figured this out and am now graduated to more daunting problems—dealing with the upgrade to Joomla 4.4—delivering the message "jerror Refresh Manifest Cache failed: PLG_SYSTEM_ACTIONLOGS Extension is not currently installed." I guess I should post this separately or search for the topic... All best, Nicolas