Migrate

Perform the migration.

Discuss in our Forum Discuss in Slack

Pantheon provides a guided path for migrating existing sites to the platform. This process begins by clicking Migrate Existing Site.

The recommended way to migrate WordPress sites from another host is to use the Pantheon Migration plugin, developed by BlogVault.

  1. Open your Personal or Professional Workspace dashboard and select the Migrate Existing Site button on the lower right side of the page.

    Migrate site button

  2. Enter your current website URL, select WordPress, and click Continue.

    Enter URL and select CMS

  3. Enter the name of your new Pantheon site, select a workspace for the site (optional), and click Create Site.

    Install Plugin

  4. Select Generate Machine Token and re-authenticate if prompted.

    Begin process of installing plugin

  5. Select Install on /wp-admin. A new tab will open with your WordPress CMS for your existing site. Keep the Pantheon tab open in your browser. Install on /wp-admin

  6. Search for and install the plugin.

    Searching for plugin on WordPress

  7. Click Activate.

    Copying and pasting info

  8. Go back to the browser tab containing your Pantheon dashboard, copy the machine token from the Pantheon Dashboard, then go back to the WordPress Dashboard on your existing site. Paste the machine token and the site name, and click Migrate.

    Copying and pasting info

    When the migration is complete, the Migration completed successfully page appears.

    Migration successful

    You will also receive an email when the migration completes.

  9. Go back to the Pantheon tab and click Confirm migration progress. Your site's dashboard appears.

 Note

The WordPress Native PHP Sessions plugin is automatically installed during the migration process. For more details on this plugin, see WordPress and PHP Sessions.

The recommended way to migrate Drupal sites from another host is to use drush ard (Drush 8 or 11) to create an archive that can be easily imported.

  1. Open your Personal or Professional Workspace dashboard and click the Migrate Existing Site button.

    Migrate site button

  2. Enter your current website URL, select Drupal 7 or Drupal 8, and click Continue.

    Enter URL and select CMS

  3. Enter the name of your new Pantheon site, select a workspace for the site (optional), and click Create Site.

    Install Plugin

  4. Follow the instructions to Create an Archive of Your Existing Site With Drush:

    The Dashboard instructs you to put the archive on your existing website, but you can put the site archive on Dropbox, S3, or any number of other places. The important thing is that you have a site archive that can be downloaded via a publicly accessible URL.

    Click Continue Migration

    Drupal create archive

  5. Paste the publicly accessible URL to a download of your site archive on the right side of the page. If you are using a Dropbox URL, change the end of the URL from dl=0 to dl=1 so we can import your site archive correctly. Click Import Archive.

    Import archive

  6. Click Visit the Site Dashboard from the Site Dashboard on Pantheon after the import is complete.

    Successful Drupal Migration

You now have a Dev environment containing your migrated site, including your Content Management System (accessible via the Site Admin button).

To create your Test environment:

  1. Go to the Site Dashboard.

  2. Click the Test tab, then click Initialize Test Environment to create your Test environment.

    Initializing the test environment

    This takes a few moments.

  3. Go to the Database / Files tab and select the following:

    • From this Environment: Development
    • Clone Database: Checked
    • Clone Files: Checked

  4. Click Clone the Database & the Files from Development into the Test Environment.

    Cloning Dev to Test

To create your Live environment:

  1. Go to the Site Dashboard.

  2. Click the Live tab.

  3. Click Initialize Live Environment to create your Live environment.

    Initialize live environment

  4. Go to the the Database / Files tab and select the following:

    • From this Environment: Development
    • Clone Database: Checked
    • Clone Files: Checked

  5. Click Clone the Database & the Files from Test into the Live Environment.

    Clone test to live

  6. Type "CLONE" and then click Overwrite This Environment when prompted to confirm you want to go live.

    Confirm cloning

Review Troubleshooting or contact Support if the migration is unsuccessful. Include a link to the Site Dashboard and any details you can provide, such as where you are migrating the site from.