one-click install on domain without breaking it

Here's the situation:

I have a domainname, marnik.org, which I "rent" at e-vidence.be. The hosting behind it is with powerhost.be.

Now, about a week ago I signed up for 2 years of dreamhost.com hosting.

The domain marnik.org is redirected to jesus.spydro.be/weblog (on powerhost.be's servers), and it contains my working wordpress blog.

I would like to transfer everything to dreamhost, domain and hosting, but I would like to do that without taking the blog down. In other words, I'd like to do a one-click install of wordpress (2.10?), get all the posts and comments in the database, edit the script a little, so that everything works on dreamhost.com BEFORE using it as my new blog.

Porblem is I can't create blog.marnik.org on dreamhost (because marnik.org is not registered with dreamhost). How would I go about on doing this The Right Way?

I was thinking along the lines of getting the domainname (marnik.org) on dreamhost FIRST, and redirect to the old webspace (jesus.spydro.be/weblog), then create blog.marnik.org with the new blog (on dreamhost), and finally get marnik.org redirected to blog.marnik.org.

Any hints?

In reply to:

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How would I go about on doing this The Right Way?

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I am not sure this is the 'right' way, but this is the way I would do it :)

Firstly, you can add the domains marnik.org and blog.marnik.org to the DreamHost system without affecting your existing sites. Just add them as 'fully hosted' via the panel at Domains -> Manage Domains -> Add New Domain / Sub-Domain. Once again, this will not affect your existing sites, as long as you do not configure the DNS for marnik.org to point to the DreamHost DNS servers.

The above step will result in two directories in your home directory corresponding to the domain and sub-domain. You can now upload your site files, create any required data-bases and basically get things working.

To access these domains for testing purposes you can either modify the hosts file on your computer, so the domain names resolve to the IP address of the DreamHost server they are located on, or you can create free dreamhosters.com sub-domains and set them to mirror the real domains. More information on this second technique can be found in the wiki article linked below;

http://www.wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/DNS_-_Viewing_site_before_DNS_change

Once everything is working as you like, you can configure the domain DNS to point at the DreamHost DNS servers and (if you want) transfer the domain registration to DreamHost.

I hope the above makes sense. If not, ask some more questions and I will do my best to help.

Mark

You could do it that way, however I should point out that at the moment, it's not an absolute requirement. It doesn't matter where your domain is registered or anything of the sort. What you could do, however, is the following:
1: from the domains section of the control panel, create marnik.org as a fully hosted domain name on DH's servers, and ignore the advice it gives to make sure marnik.org points to DH's nameservers. You won't need it for these steps.
2: Create a subdomain, we'll call it marnik.dreamhosters.com, and make it a mirror of the marnik.org domain name you've just set up on the previous step.
3: Wait the requisit however long it takes for you to get an email saying one or both have been set up, then point your web browser to marnik.dreamhosters.com. You should get either a 'Index of /' page, or a DH default domain parked page. If not, try again to the same address in half an hour, and every half hour after that until you do.
4: When you've confirmed marnik.dreamhosters.com works, return to the panel, this time to the one-click installs section, and install wordpress to marnik.org. Then wait for the confirmation email.
5: The email will tell you to go to www.marnik.org for your next few steps–don't. Replace it with marnik.dreamhosters.com instead. Set up and configure as per normal.

When you've tweeked and configured to your liking, then it's just a matter of changing the nameserver information for the domain in and of itself to point to Dreamhost. There will unfortunately be downtime involved, but it'll only be 12-24 hours, and when it comes back up, your blog will still be the same, just on a different server. You'll have to change a few settings when you make the final change, that being deleting the marnik.dreamhosters.com subdomain, but other than that, you should be golden.

Yes, I have an opinion.

Get a minimum 50% off with the "haveadreamyday" promo code, and... have a dreamy day. Original, no?

In reply to:

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There will unfortunately be downtime involved, but it'll only be 12-24 hours

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Why would there be downtime?

I'd follow the Wiki instructions as posted. When you back up your database at the other host, you could turn of comments on your posts if it's a busy site, but leave them on here -- that way only the site hosted at Dreamhost can be updated.