Move an OJS installation

Software Support
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1

Hello everyone, I have been asked to move an OJS installation to a different directory. I wanted to ask for clarifications and suggestions on how to do it to avoid damaging the installation. If someone knows how to do it or has already done it would be welcome suggestions. I’m going to describe the actual setup.

Example URL: www.website.it/journals

*website.it/ hosts a Wordpress website. It will be deleted because Wordpress is no longer needed.
*In “journals” directory there is the OJS installation
*The OJS media files are stored in the directory website.it/media
*Wordpress and OJS use two different databases. Each one has its own dedicated database.

What we want to do after deleting Wordpress is to move the OJS installation to the root of the website (from journals to website.it). How can we adapt the database, configuration etc. to the new directory? is it possible to do this operation? Thanks.

2

Hi @pfnc,

I believe you are confusing URLs (WEB site structures) with the filesystem files location. If you delete the Wordpress web site and coresponding files, the OJS stays untouched.
Can you please specify a bit more:

  • file structure (note that filestructrure has no URLs, but directories)
  • URL (WEB) structure

Then maybe I can help. Oh, and one more think: Which WEB server and OS are you using?

Regards, Primož

3

Hello, thanks for your answer. I know that if I delete the Wordpress website the OJS installation remains untouched. My goal is to replace Wordpress with my current OJS installation. I assume that I should change something in the OJS database to make it work properly after moving it. That’s the reason for my post. The website runs on Apache with Linux. You’ll excuse me if I don’t use the real name of the website but I’m not the owner and I’ve been invited to use dummy names. As far as you’re asking:

If I need to be clearer or add any other information do not hesitate to ask.

Thanks again for your answer.

4

Hi @pfnc,

Sorry, still not clear to me. Can you please fill the table bellow:

image

And one more thing: Can you please write the base_URL value from the OJS config.ini.php?

Regards, Primož

5

Hello @primozs,
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough. In the second post I used “ojs” instead of journals to make the URL better understandable but they are equivalent. To clarify ourselves, let us take as a reference what I wrote in my second post.

For the other information you’re asking for:
https://mywebsite.com points to /www.mywebsite.com/ which contains the Wordpress installation. base_url (obtained from System Information) is https://www.mywebsite.com/ojs

6

Hi @pfnc,

I am still confused. Can you please fill the complete table above (except by mistake repeated last row)?

Regards, Primož

7

Hi @primozs,

https://mywebsite.com/index.php (WP index.php page) | yes | /www.mywebsite.com
https://mywebsite.com/ojs/index.php/myjournal | yes | /www.mywebsite.com/ojs

The other two lines of the table are extra and are not useful for our discussion.
If you want you can freely contact me at my email address that you find in the profile of the forum so I can send you in private the real url of the website and other information.

Thank you.

8

Hi @pfnc,

Ok now it is better. And what do you want to do? OJS to be accessible on which URL? On https://mywebsite.com?

For that you have to:

  • configure the WEB server to point the URL to the OJS
  • change the base path in the config.inc.php to point to the same URL

So no need for changing the OJS DB. You can do that even before removing the Wordpress. Once that works, you can remove the Wordpress by deleting the files.

Regards, Primož

9

Hi @primozs, that’s it. That’s exactly what I meant. Yes, I want to make OJS accessible from https://mywebsite.com

I understand what you mean, but I need some clarification. In the first point should I indicate the current location of OJS? When all this works, once the WordPress files have been deleted, do the OJS files remain in their current directories or can I move them to where the WordPress files actually are? Could you be more detailed?

EDIT

Since I’ve been experiencing this problem (Style and formatting display error) for a few days and I haven’t been able to solve it yet, I was thinking of doing so:

I delete WordPress and perform a clean installation of OJS in its directory and then delete the current OJS installation. Would it be possible then to use the contents and the database of the current OJS to not lose anything? What do you think? Is this feasible?

Thank you.

10

Hi @pfnc,

There is no need to complicate things. Leave OJS where it is, change the URL_base and set correctly the WEB server so that the https://mywebsite.com points to the OJS directory. With this you will get what you want and the WordPress files will be obsolete, so you can delete them.

Regard, Primož

11

Solved. It works properly. Thank you for the help.

12

Don’t forget to check the texts on the ojs website. In our case we found links to the old URL in the predefined content for authors and readers.

13

Hi @ingokeck, we’ve already updated all the URLs. Thank you for pointing this out.

14

Hi @primozs

Just trying to understand.

Are you saying that you can have OJS installed in a sub-directory and have a different URL that points to that OJS installation?

For example, let says you have a website www.smile.com. You install OJS in a sub-directory www.smile.com/ojs

Is it possible that you users can access that OJS website (www.smile.com/ojs) VIA www.smile.com

So, www.smile.com/ojs will point to www.smile.com?

15

Hi @newone,

Yes, that is a web server config.

Regards, Primož

16

@primozs Thanks for the clarification. Are you referring to addon domain or domain pointers?

17

Hi @newone,

I am sorry, I don’t understand you. I think you are mixing URLs and filesystem directories. The web server config defines to which directories certain URLs points to. That is www.smile.com can point to /var/www/smile/ojs if you want.

Regards, Primož