Hosting vs Domain & Hosting

So this is probably a very nooblet question, but here's the scenario:

I signed up with Dreamhost in 2006 on a domain hosting plan. The term is coming up soon.

On this plan I have mydomain.com and am hosting a primary website on subdomain.mydomain.com.

I don't want to renew mydomain.com.
I do want to keep my hosting at Dreamhost and move subdomain.mydomain.com -> newdomain.com

If I register a new (or transfer) a domain name to my current hosting account, what do I need to do to get the data at subdomain.mydomain.com to appear at newdomain.com?

...or is my hosting linked to the mydomain.com name?

Thanks in advance for any help! :)

cj

Not nooblet at all!

To a first approximation, all you have to do is move the files and, if necessary, change the configuration of whatever web application like WordPress you're using on your old domain.

All the files for the website subdomain.mydomain.com are in the directory /home/cherryjello/subdomain.mydomain.com/ .

When you register or transfer newdomain.com, add it as a fully hosted domain in the dreamhost control panel. This will create the directory /home/cherryjello/newdomain.com/ .

Then all you need to do is copy the files and make any necessary configuration changes. You may also need to change any not-so-generically-coded url rewrite rules you have in your .htaccess file, but it's unlikely that you have any so you can probably just ignore this sentence!

Are you hosting a WordPress blog at subdomain.mydomain.com? forum? wiki? Tell us and we'll be able to give more specifics! After we find that out I may have a few more mySQL questions as well.

Tips: a tricky way to move files between two domains is to rename the folder to the new domain name.

For example, rename /home/olduser/olddomain.com to /home/newuser/newdomain.com

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Tips: a tricky way to move files between two domains is to rename the folder to the new domain name.

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Thats a good tip and one that I've used a few times myself.

Another (similar) option would be to specify the old web-directory when adding the new domain to the hosting system.

Note: Regardless of which option you decide to use, you may need to go over the site files carefully and modify any files (including configuration files) that reference the old domain directly (http://olddomain.com), or by file path (/home/username/olddomain/).

Mark

Sweet!

After reading some of the other threads it seemed like it would be *relatively* easy. Just needed some veteran direction! :wink:

Lensman, nathan823 & Raz2133, thanks for helping me out and for the tips!

As for what I'm hosting, just a wordpress blog and phpbb forum. Limited custom coding. Most of the changes have been to some custom links in phpbb.

oooh! Another sorta related question.

So my original promotional contract included mydomain.com's domain name registration, does this domain name auto-expire when my hosting does?

If I let mydomain.com expire, but continue my hosting plan, does it include a new domain name registration?

Or would I have to pay an additional $9.95/year for a new domain name in addition to the monthly hosting cost?

And if I didn't have newdomain.com yet to direct my sites to, how could I get to my site if mydomain.com expired?

Theoretically you will have one free domain registration credit!

Wholly - Use promo code WhollyMindless for full 97$ credit. Let me know if you want something else!

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If I let mydomain.com expire, but continue my hosting plan, does it include a new domain name registration?

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The 'free' domain basically works like this; Just before the anniversary date of your hosting plan, you will receive one domain registration credit, it is totally up to you whether you use this to renew the initial domain you registered when signing-up, renew a different domain or use it to register a new domain.

You won't actually see this domain credit anywhere in the panel, the only way you know you have a domain credit is that the renewal (or registration) cost will be shown as $0.0

Mark

Great! Thanks so much Mark!