Thread

This is inspired by ExpressionEngine but not actually a question about it. I think web servers are demons put on this earth to torment developers, which is why this question has been vexing me.

One of my clients has a Linux Dedicated Server with GoDaddy where they host their development sites and all of their ExpressionEngine sites. Their lead developer was explaining to me how to move a site from the dev part of the server to the live part (where a new domain had been created). He said I should create a new database (including new username and password) through the new domain, then export the development DB and import it to the live DB.

But what I noticed is when I went into PhpMyAdmin, both databases appeared anyway and could be accessed using the administrative username and password. So my question is, why should I even bother creating a new database, username, and password when I move an EE site live if none of the original database info changes?

If it was not for the web servers we would not have this conversation at all 😊
He is right.
Why?
To separate the two environments of ‘development’ and ‘live’ so changes (or mistakes during testing and development) don’t affect the live site.
The fact that databases are on the same server doesn’t change the need to have two setups.
What does change is paths and folder locations and in hand settings stored in the EE database.

technically speaking you could have both installations run out of the same database using different table prefixes, but yeah you should keep your dev and live data separated one way or another.

OK I can see that being the case, but why would I have to bother creating a new username and password? Why couldn’t I just use the administrative login info?

Well, one of the nice things about keeping separate users for the various databases is that it provides a degree of separation that can protect you (for instance, if someone were to gain access to user A which is attached to database A, they don’t have the permissions necessary to play around with database B or C).

More than likely, you had just logged into phpmyadmin with mysql root access.