When my Let’s Encrypt SSL gone up and the website become unsecure, the nightmare started. Easily the web traffics go low due to Chrome browser stops the visitors to avoid entering unsecured sites. I couldn’t renew my SSL as well due to older version of Bitnami Stack that I had and eventually I had to migrate whole stuffs to get it fixed . So How did I migrate the whole WP to newer Bitnami stack and fixed the SSL issue?
What has happened?
Though I had words with Bitnami community team, it wasn’t much fruitful. Later I understood that Bitnami stack that I had was older version and so the Bitnami’s own Certification tool bncert-tool were not working.
Configuring the Let’s encrypt the old way yet not worked and thrown Invalid Respose .well-known/acme-challenge.
Finally, upgrading the Bitnami stack is alone the best route to get it fixed.
Steps I used to migrate?
- For test purpose: Create a new virtual machine (VM) with the latest Bitnami stack
- For test purpose: Create a tester page for the domain and forward it in the DNS (I used testersite.digiajay.com forwarded to the virtual machine WordPress)
- For test purpose: Configure Bitnami’s own SSL though shell access (SSH) for the tester page and ensured that the lock symbol appears for the tester page.
- For test purpose: Backup/archive the WordPress from old VM using Duplicator plugin
- For test purpose: Use the FileZilla FTP to transfer the archive to WordPress folder in VM. Enable write access to the WordPress and subfolders via shell access.
- For test purpose: Restore the backed up files to new VM with these Duplicator steps by overwriting the existing DB and other files (I overwritten since it’s new fresh VM stack).
- For test purpose: Few plugins might break, enable debug mode in the wp-config.php file to see troubling items.
- For test purpose: Disable the troubling items by renaming the troubling plugin folder name, via FTP.
- For test purpose: Login to WordPress admin and update those troubling plugins
- For test purpose: Check everything is okay from the tester page.
- Production : Change the static IP from old VM to new VM (I didn’t redirect or update the DNS)
- Production : Reconfigure Bitnami’s own SSL though shell access (SSH) for the production page.
- Production Optional: Images might be broken after above steps, images link to static IP. I understood that it happens due to I restored the backup first then certified the main domain with SSL. I think this happens because the SSL certification happened at last. Since everything looked fine after all testing, I simply restored the backup again (overwrite again) this production WordPress from the same duplicator archive (redoing some of above test purpose steps) Images loaded back without any issues.
What should I do in future?
Update Bitnami stack at the least every 6 months or in a 1 year of time to keep my wordpress updated
Ajay is a professional developer and architect of NI-LabVIEW applications with extreme interest in getting the hardware connected to LabVIEW and automating the stuff. Recently he is also putting his hands in NI-TestStand to get very dirty on it. He is also a good mentor for the various interns in his career. He is ready to help the people in techie roles.