Moving a WordPress Multisite with Duplicator

Moving a Multisite install doesn’t have to be difficult but it can take a bit of work. What follows are the instructions on how to move a multisite install of WordPress using the Duplicator Lite plugin.

Important: These steps DO NOT apply when using Duplicator Pro, since they have been folded into the logic of that plugin. Duplicator Lite does not officially support multisite setups, we recommend that you upgrade to Duplicator Pro if you want to work with WordPress multisite networks.

If you are moving a multisite network to a new host or domain, a bit of tweaking is required. No tweaking is required if you are restoring to the same host and domain however.

Core Steps

Install plugin
Network activate plugin
On-site 1, perform the backup. That will capture the entire site into a package
Restore the site in the new location just like normal Duplicator/Pro procedure

Post-Install

After the site has been restored to the destination site please execute the following changes

Database Changes

wp_site: Update values the new domain and path
wp_blogs: Update values for new domain and path for each sub-site/blog
wp_x_options (one for each sub-site/blog, where x is the blog-id): update values for option_name like ‘siteurl’, option_name like ‘home’, option_name like ‘upload_url_path’ and there’ll be others if you’ve got things like woocommerce, etc. installed, you can also update these via the network admin > sites > SITE_NAME > edit > settings themselves..

wp-config.php Changes

define(‘DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘NEWVALUE’);
define(‘PATH_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘NEWVALUE’);

.htaccess Changes

Validate the .htaccess file, so that might also need to be updated, see here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Multisite_Network_Administration#.htaccess_and_Mod_Rewrite

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