Production and Testing?

[thisisyoyo]

How to deploy a production and testing server for my SugarCRM deployment?

Does this simply mean to install an exact version of my current production tool in another directory with no records and duplicate any modification on there or is there a specific rule to follow when implementing this procedure.

I do not have any type of testing methods which I feel is not something i should do. Obviously if i install a module or screw up the live system it will raise some eyebrows.

How should i go about this?

Thank you.

[eNick]

The short answer is that it depends on what you're trying to prove.

If you've already got a production server, and you simply want a sandpit in which to try out changes before committing them to the live server (very sensible) then yes, all you need is a seperate directory *and* a seperate database instance. (Because some things you do will get stored in the database).

If you're building a system you intend to deploy for, say, a customer, then the test environment will need to be more or less a complete clone of the target environment.

Copying the solution to create a test environment is straightforward.

Step 1
Just copy the full folder structure. Technically, you don't need to copy the cache directory unless you have documents uploaded (as they're stored in the cache).

Step 2
In your database admin tool (say phpMyAdmin) use the features to copy the database instance. This will copy all the records, which is probably more useful than having an empty version.

Step 3
Edit config.php in your test version to point to the new database instance.