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Export a site and import it elsewhere

In this guide you move a Hatamoto site to a new server. You save the whole site's content to one archive, a single compressed file, and rebuild the site from it on the new server. The same archive is also a copy of your content that no one can lock away from you.

Before you start

A shell on the old server and on the new one, as the user that runs Hatamoto. Export and import run only on the command line; the admin page Settings > Import & export > Site export & import shows these commands but has no button.
The database address, the DATABASE_URL setting that tells Hatamoto where its Postgres database is, for each server. Postgres is the database Hatamoto stores everything in. Load the service's settings into your shell so the variable is set.
On the new server: Hatamoto installed, an empty database, and the settings from Requirements and secrets. The import refuses a database that already has content.
The same or a newer Hatamoto version on the new server. A new server refuses an archive from a newer version.

Steps

Save the archive on the old server

On the old server, run the export. It reads DATABASE_URL and the media folder MEDIA_UPLOAD_DIR (default ./uploads):
```
hatamoto export site.tar.gz
```
```
exported 1834 rows in 19 tables and 212 media files (48211967 bytes) to site.tar.gz
```
The numbers depend on your site. If the export fails, no half-written file is left under the final name.
Decide whether the archive may hold visitor data. By default it includes form submissions, the messages visitors sent through your forms. If the file will leave your control, export without them instead:
```
hatamoto export site.tar.gz --no-submissions
```

Rebuild the site on the new server

Copy site.tar.gz to the new server, for example with scp site.tar.gz [email protected]:.
On the new server, load the service's settings so DATABASE_URL points at the new, empty database.
Run the import:
```
hatamoto import site.tar.gz
```
```
imported 1834 rows in 19 tables and 212 media files
2 users imported without passwords: set one with `hatamoto user reset-password --email <email>`
```
The import first runs the migrations, the steps that set up the database structure for this version, then loads the archive in one go. If anything fails, nothing is kept.
Give each user a password. Passwords are not in the archive, so nobody can sign in yet. For each email address, run:
```
hatamoto user reset-password --email [email protected]
```
```
password reset for [email protected]
temporary password: <24 random characters>
```
The temporary password is printed once. Send it to the person through a private channel; they change it after they sign in.

Finish the new site

Install your theme and plugins again. Installed packages, the files that hold a theme or a plugin, are not in the archive, because the new server must decide for itself which ones it trusts. Install each with hatamoto package install <file>.hmp.
Turn your theme on with hatamoto theme activate <name>, where <name> is the theme's name.
Start Hatamoto on the new server and sign in.
Change your domain's DNS records, the settings that send visitors to a server, to point at the new server once the site looks right. Your addresses stay the same, because the archive holds your redirects and address settings.

Check it worked

Sign in to the admin on the new server with the temporary password from the reset. Your pages, posts, menus, media and redirects are there. Open a few public pages and check that their images load.

If the import stops with database is not empty, the target already has content. Point DATABASE_URL at a new, empty database and run the import again.

This archive holds content only. API keys, sessions, statistics and plugin settings are not in it, and it does not replace a full server backup; see Backups. The full list of what the archive holds and the rules the import follows are in Archive format.

If your old site was WordPress rather than Hatamoto, use Import from WordPress instead.