Error cloning or synchronizing website from a remote server.

[rodrigo-gpereira]

When attempting to clone or synchronize a website via a remote server using the ee site clone and ee site sync commands, if the site has been provisioned with a custom public-dir, the wp-config.php configuration file is overwritten by the source file, causing an error during the database import process.

This problem only occurs when the clone is performed from a remote server.

Evidence:

I performed the test on two servers, verifying that:

• They can communicate via SSH.
• The website to be cloned has a custom public directory.
• Monitoring of the ee.log file.

The log shows that the cloned site is attempting to write to the database using the wp-config.php file copied from the source, and not the newly created file.

Upon completion, it is described as a successfully created site, but the log indicates that the cloned site was deleted after a database connection failure.

Example Command:

sudo ee site clone root@192.168.100.20:custom-public.local .

Checking access to both sites
Creating site. This may take a while...
Syncing files
Syncing database
Exporting database from source
Copying database to destination
Importing database in destination
Error: Error while executing clone-import-db. closure: Unable to import database on destination. Please check for file system permissions and disk space.
Cleanup export file from source and destination
Success: Site cloned successfully.
You have to do these additional configurations manually (if required):
1. Update wp-config.php.
2. Add alias domains. 

[mrrobot47]

The issue originates from how the original site was created. The --public-dir=current/web (or your specific custom path) flag wasn’t passed during site creation, so EasyEngine has no record that the site uses a custom web directory. If that flag had been included at creation time, you wouldn’t be experiencing these problems with the clone, nor would you need to modify the Nginx configuration after updating the site to a custom directory path.

[rodrigo-gpereira]

The issue originates from how the original site was created. The --public-dir=current/web (or your specific custom path) flag wasn’t passed during site creation, so EasyEngine has no record that the site uses a custom web directory. If that flag had been included at creation time, you wouldn’t be experiencing these problems with the clone, nor would you need to modify the Nginx configuration after updating the site to a custom directory path.

The source site had already been created using the --public-dir flag for custom paths, but to validate the scenario again I repeated the entire procedure without the proposed fix.

Below are the details of the newly created site:

infoadm@ee-server-02:~$ sudo ee site create custom-public-test.local --type=wp --public-dir=current/web
Starting site creation.
Configuring project.
Creating WordPress site custom-public-test.local
Copying configuration files.
Starting sites services.
Downloading and configuring WordPress.
Moved /var/www/htdocs/current/web/wp-config.php to /var/www/htdocs/current/wp-config.php successfully
Success: Host entry successfully added.
Checking and verifying site-up status. This may take some time.

Installing WordPress site.
Success: http://custom-public-test.local has been created successfully!

Below is the attempt to clone this site without the proposed fix:

infoadm@ee-staging:~$ sudo ee site clone root@192.168.100.20:custom-public-test.local custom-public-cloned.local
Checking access to both sites
Creating site. This may take a while...
Syncing files
Syncing database
Exporting database from source
Copying database to destination
Importing database in destination
Executing search-replace
Error: Error while executing clone-import-db. closure: Unable to execute http search-replace on database at destination.
Cleanup export file from source and destination
Success: Site cloned successfully.
You have to do these additional configurations manually (if required):
1. Update wp-config.php.
2. Add alias domains.

The command returns a false positive indicating that the site was cloned, but it also displays “Error while executing clone-import-db”, and the clone is not actually performed.

I also sent a section of the log, where you can see the failure occurring.
ee.log

If you need me to perform a new test with a command pattern that is not described in the documentation, please let me know.