How to import a site in my localhost

Question

I have a joomla 2.5 site, and I want to upgrade it to joomla 3.x, but before I want to import my joola 2.5 site on my local server (wamp) to make some modifications (change the template and other stuff...) Where I am now :

• I saved my site's files with Filezilla, and put the file in my www file in wamp.
• I saved my database from the server.
• I have downloaded the latest version of joomla, and put the file in the www file too.
• I created a new database with phpMyAdmin, and import my database previously saved into it.
• I have installed this joomla on my wamp localhost and specify the database I created previously.

Now, of course, the joomla site i got is empty, and i want to retrive my site with the files I saved with filezilla and here I don't know how to do that. Or, and it's quite possible, I really don't understand how import my joomla site in my local server and all the things above are wrong...

Thank you

Answer 1

First of all, you don't need to download the latest version of Joomla, because the files you download from your original site already has everything you need.

Akeeba Backup is a better way to move/restore a site, but as you say you don't have full admin access, it's not an option. You'll probably have to get full admin access eventually, but that's not very difficult if you have access to the files and to the database.

In order to restore your site, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Make sure you have downloaded all the files from the server
• Place the downloaded files in a subfolder of your www folder, e.g. c:\wamp\www\joomla
• Download the complete database, and restore it to your localhost
• Rename the file .htaccess (if present) to something else. It might cause problems if not properly configured.

• Open configuration.php, and change the following lines to connect to your database:

  public $host = 'localhost';
  public $user = 'root';
  public $password = '';
  public $db = 'YOURDATABASENAME';
  

  (On Wamp, the user is root, and the password is empty unless you've made changes to the default configuration)

• Still in configuration.php, set the tmp and log folder:

  public $log_path = 'C:\\wamp\\www\\YOURFOLDER/logs';
  public $tmp_path = 'C:\\wamp\\www\\YOURFOLDER/tmp';
  

• Finally, make sure $sef_rewrite is set to 0:

  public $sef_rewrite = '0';
  

Save, and you should be able to visit your Joomla site by entering http://localhost/YOURFOLDER in your browser.