Replacing Ghost Server - What am I forgetting?

It’s time for me to replace my Ghost setup at blog.website.com with a fancy new install of Ghost. My current one is super old and buggy, so a fresh start is required.

I’m a bit freaked out that I’m going to break something when replacing my live site as it’s a little more complicated than running ghost update :slight_smile:

I was hoping someone could run through my checklist and let me know if the order is OK, and if I’ve forgotten anything super important.

General information

Current website: live.website.com
New Test Site: new.website.com

I have new.website.com setup and good to go!
I now want to update live.website.com so it’s pointing to the ipaddress with the new website.

Planned Steps

  1. Backup live website (live.website.com)

  2. Backup new website (new.website.com)

  3. Turn on Cloudflare maintenance page

  4. Change config url for new.website.com so it called live.website.com > ghost config url https://live.website.com

  5. Edit DNS settings -

  1. Wait until live.website.com updates and shows the new website.

  2. Integrations:

  • Add new API keys to parent website so Ghost can talk to the new Ghost install
  1. Check everything is working.

  2. Turn off Cloudflare maintenance mode.

Questions

  • Do I need take any other steps other than ghost config url?
  • Are there any steps I’m completely forgetting?
  • Does changing TTL really do anything?

Just following up with this in case it’s helpful to anyone self-hosting.

  • This worked perfectly
  • I didn’t change the TTL, kept it at auto
  • New blog appeared within minutes

Only thing worth mentioning was that the API took about 10 minutes to update. I’m using Heroku, so if doing the same, update your configs and just be patient.