Here is a procedure for moving a site to new server space using FTP

Back-up the existing site:

  1. Use the contributed module ‘Backup and Migrate’. Do a ‘Quick Backup’ to export the database as an sql file.
  2. Use the Configuration Management UI to do a Full Export of the current configuration as a .gz file.
  3. Make sure you have an up-to-date copy of Backdrop core, as well as the contents of the following directories:
    • files
    • layouts
    • modules
    • themes
    • config

Upload Backdrop into the new server:

  1. FTP all your code (from step 3 above) to the server.

Import the database

  1. If you have access to PHPmyAdmin or similar on your web host, use this service to import the database generated in the first step.
    • You may need to first create a database, database user, and database password, depending on your server setup.

Update the settings.php file

  1. Edit the settings.php file on your server.
    1. Make sure the database name, database user, and database password match what was created in the previous step.
    2. Set the location of your config directories. (It's safest to keep them outside your web root.)

Visit your Backdrop site at it's URL

  1. Visit your site and confirm that everything looks as expected.
  2. Log in, and test editing content and saving configuration.

Optional: Use the Configuration Management UI to do additional testing.

  1. Navigate to the configuration management UI
  2. Import the configuration .gz file exported in the second step.

The Configuration Management function will first load the json files into the staging folder and then check whether they can be loaded as active files. Any discrepancy, such as a missing module, will halt the process with an error message advising, for example, on which module is missing. Resolve the errors, and try again.