Great new feature in Installatron

Installatron has pushed version 8 of their software today. If your hosting provider has deployed the Installatron plugin for your control panel, there is a great new feature: the ability to clone a site – both files/directories and database – with a single button click. You will still need to backup your .htaccess and info.php files from your current test site prior to cloning if cloning into the same directory and restore them into the cloned site but this is otherwise a great new feature.

They also provide a means to upgrade any included app (ocPortal is included) with a single button push with the option to automatically backup your site first. I am not sure I would ever use this but I may give it a spin.

Of course, they still provide excellent backup and restore features, as well. For people who are looking for tools to make website maintenance as simple as possible, this is a really useful tool. So check to see if Installatron is included in your host's control panel.

Bob

That's cool. We never supported the Installatron upgrading system though, seeing as ocPortal is a bit too broad for upgrades to be truly automated without dropping the user unexpectedly into some problems. We decided it was better to centralise on our documented upgrading process, than lead the user down a garden path of it being seamless, when compatibility of some things might have been broken, designs changed, features removed, etc.

Chris Graham said

That's cool. We never supported the Installatron upgrading system though, seeing as ocPortal is a bit too broad for upgrades to be truly automated without dropping the user unexpectedly into some problems. We decided it was better to centralise on our documented upgrading process, than lead the user down a garden path of it being seamless, when compatibility of some things might have been broken, designs changed, features removed, etc.

I figured this might be the case which is why I voiced my reservation about using their tool. Still, the cloning and backup/restore tools are really effective timesavers and help to make certain that you can recover quickly from problems (just as I had to yesterday after trying an upgrade of my live site).

Bob

Thank you Bob for keeping us up to date with this information about Installatron's new feature.

I've used Installatron intensively and I'm always amazed by the speed at which a new complete ocPortal site could be up and running in just mere seconds.

Cheers!

Jean 

If I understand correctly, there is another new feature that essentially clones a site from a remote host too. They are doing some really interesting things, making various tasks virtually foolproof.

Bob

I have never heard of Installatron it looks similar to SimpleScripts which is where I was introduced to ocPortal. I use iPage as a host in the CPanel it had SimpleScripts offered. All simplScripts does is install a copy including the necessary database and offer a easy way to one click uninstall it.
Anyway when I went there it listed ocPortal 7.1.6 New!  I loaded the first copy that way to try it.
Then I found it was not new since 8.1 was out. I went ahead came here and loaded a fresh new copy on my own. But thats what Chris was saying about "better to centralise on our documented upgrading process" and I agree I always like to go to the source if possible.    

I like upgrading from the source too.

Installatron is similar in some ways to SimpleScripts and Fantastico as they are all software repositories. Fortunately, Chris keeps the current version updated in Installatron (well, I did remind him with the 8.1 upgrade but he would have gotten to it.

One of the  nice features of Installtron is that you can backup and install and restore it – very handy when doing upgrades as it's one-click easy.

The newly-added clone feature is really nice for creating test sites from your live site with just the replacement of the .htaccess and info.php files.

Most important takeaway from this, is BACKUP when you are doing something with your site. I suspect that is why Chris "liked" the post.

Bob

Along with it's great new features, v8 of Installatron seems to maybe have a not so great new "feature". It appears to be dropping database entries either on backup or restore. I'm wishing I had caught this sooner but I'd suggest taking exporting your DB through phpMyAdmin in addition to taking the Installatron backup. Strangely, I did – right after the Installatron backup. Grrrrrr.

Bob

Funny you mention database issues as my site crashed in the wee hrs of the morning from database issues.   I wasnt using Installatron or any other 3rd party installer though. So I kind of know how you feel. Sorry for your misfortune.

Ah, I owe the Installatron people a apology. Their backup/restore worked properly. There was either some sort of glitch (maybe caching - although I cleared the caches) or some sort of MySQL hiccup that kept two of my galleries from appearing. This suddenly experienced a self-healing event and all is back on track.

Of course, in the meantime I had downgraded to v8 (only to find the same galleries missing) and had to do the upgrade again.

Installatron (or any installer) would not cause database issues. I was referring to its backup/restore functionality that appeared to miss backing up or restoring some entries, but that turned out not to be the case.

Hopefully, I won't have too many issues now that 8.1 is installed.

Sorry to hear about your troubles with your database. Hopefully, you have a good recent backup.

Bob

BobS said

Installatron seems to maybe have a not so great new "feature". It appears to be dropping database entries either on backup or restore.

   

BobS said

Ah, I owe the Installatron people a apology. Their backup/restore worked properly.

Don't scare me like Bob!!!

temp1024 said

BobS said

Installatron seems to maybe have a not so great new "feature". It appears to be dropping database entries either on backup or restore.

   

BobS said

Ah, I owe the Installatron people a apology. Their backup/restore worked properly.

Don't scare me like Bob!!!

It's been a helluva week. i've had more issues this week than I have had over the last several months with the issue of my automatic nightly backups to still be sorted.

I was shocked when it seemed like DB entries had been dropped but I tried again and again in two different versions of ocPortal and the entries just wouldn't appear until they just magically did. Had I been less frazzled, I would have checked the tables directly.

Bob