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Website down - need to set up a temp site - any help?


zefeena

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Hi,

My website is offline and has been for the past 24 hours.

 

I have another blank domain name with hosting with another company.  I have a tar.gz download which is apparently a complete back up of my website which I have obtained from my cpanel (which does still load).

 

I have no clue how to open this file or how to upload it. 

 

I am hoping to somehow get this onto my new host, in the probably vain hope that I will have a functioning website to take orders while i'm awaiting some information on what has happened to my 'proper' website.

 

Hopefully I'm not being completely unrealistic, but if anyone can talk me through any of this or advise me in anyway, it would be gratefully appreciated.

 

thank you kellie

 

 

Running a botched up version of  osCommerce Online Merchant v2.3.4 bootstrap with the dresscode theme installed, numerous add-ons, terrible coding, terrible website, but will have to make do until I have made up for my losses and can risk shutting down for a couple of weeks while I start all over again. - I did not install my program but am endeavouring to fix it with your help.

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You can use a program called 7 Zip (which is free) to open a tar.gz file.

 

You can then use a program called Filezilla to upload your files to your new website.

 

However, if you are a bit clueless about all this then post a request in the osCommerce Commercial Support Forum where you can get someone professional to do it for you quickly, efficiently, and at a realistic cost without hassle.

osCommerce user since 2003! :thumbsup:

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I'm wondering what the point of this is? It will take several days just for your DNS change to point to the new hosting to take effect around the world -- by then, your current host ought to be back on line (barring an enormous disaster on their end). Have they told you that you should expect to be offline for an extended period? If so, I would start shopping for a different host. There's no excuse for going down that hard without backup and a reasonably quick restoration. Now, you say that you can access your control panel, which means that the server is still up and your account is still good. So, just what exactly is knocking you offline? Did you go over some resource limit? Did someone hack your store? Has your host given you any help? I think you're going down the wrong path by spending your efforts trying to get a copy of your site up on another server.

 

Does your backup file include a very recent database backup? If it doesn't, you're going to be missing a big chunk of your site.

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Thanks Phil.

 

I didn't think it was likely to be easy!

 

I wasn't going to move the dns servers.  Simply create a copy of my site on a new server with a new domain name for my regular customers to use temporarily.  As I have over 2000 items and no physical shop I haven't got a clue what I have or what they cost, so I can't fulfil sales manually.  Many of my customers run businesses themselves so it was only about ensuring they remain happy.

 

The host has been in touch, and explained the situation though it went over my head - some module or other! It would seem it was a physical failure, something broke! So nothing I did, nor anyone else.  Just bad luck.

 

Essentially they are trying to get the sites up without losing any data, but I presume that as that seems to be taking a while they would eventually resort to cutting their losses and just getting everyone back on line, I'm hopeful that will be very soon.

 

Kellie

Running a botched up version of  osCommerce Online Merchant v2.3.4 bootstrap with the dresscode theme installed, numerous add-ons, terrible coding, terrible website, but will have to make do until I have made up for my losses and can risk shutting down for a couple of weeks while I start all over again. - I did not install my program but am endeavouring to fix it with your help.

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I'm not sure a temporary site is the answer as it might cause problems down the line with regards to duplicate content, customers going "here" instead of "there" and so on. Unless you recreate the live site on the temp hosting, and password protect the whole thing and then let your existing customers know the password - this stops Google from getting in there...

But even that might be problematic as Paypal would not be able to send their IPN notices past the password protection...

Being down for this long is not acceptable, but we have to assume the host is working feverishly to put things right.

As an aside, many years ago, I did some part time work for a hosting firm who had a number of servers co-located in a facility (I don't remember where, maybe Arizona). Anyway, a server tech literally dropped the server - which caused hard drive failures on the main drive and the backup drive.  Thankfully not too many customers involved, only about 20ish.  But all of those 20 lost everything that they had not backed up themselves.  2 weeks later that hosting co. was out of business.

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If your host does not have daily (or near-daily) backup tapes physically secure from the servers (so a fire or flood doesn't take them out too), and a few spare machines to load up with backup images to get back online in a hurry, I would suggest that you start shopping for a new host. To have customer sites down for an extended period while they try to fix hardware is unacceptable. It would not be terribly unreasonable if they lost much of a data center to one catastrophe, but one or two machines is not good -- they should have some spares.

 

By the way, per your other thread, use whois (e.g., whois.sc) to find out your host's name ("ASN"), and whitepages.com to look up their phone number. If absolutely every contact is down, they've got BIG problems. You're paying for uninterrupted service, and they owe you better than you're getting. Also have an alternate email address (not hosted on your site) where you can talk with them (file problem reports) over email. Any host who doesn't provide for an alternate email contact for a customer isn't worth the name.

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Per the other thread, the problem was a major data center power outage (backup power failed) with damaged databases that needed to be rebuilt. This would qualify as a major site catastrophe, as it wasn't just a server or two going down. However, it sounds like everything was eventually recovered and is back online. I wouldn't be surprised if a few heads roll over the backup power failure. That's the first thing in the plans when building a data center.

 

I remember an amusing story on the subject. A co-worker had recommended to a customer that they use a UPS (battery backup) for their computer room. They duly installed it. Early one morning he received an angry call from his boss that the customer's computer room had gone down again, and they were raising bloody hell that the UPS had failed. He hurried over, looked around, unplugged the computer from the wall socket and plugged it into the UPS socket, said "Good Day!" (he's a Brit), and walked out. True story -- you can't make up these things.

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