Move a Wordpress Website Manually

Moving a Wordpress Website to another server consists of the following several steps

• Make a copy of the Database: Using phpMyAdmin, Select the database in the left pane, Export Tab, "Simple" Radio Button, Go Button, save it to a file, done.
• Make a copy of the Website Files: tar -cvzf /WhatEverDestinationFileName.tar.gz /WhatEverPathToSource/* (De-Compress: gunzip WhatEverFileName.tar.gz, tar xf WhatEverFileName.tar)
  • The .htaccess file presents a bit of an issue when "tarring", so copy it manually.
• Move or copy the saved database and website files to another server: rsync -vP WhatEverFileName UserName@URLorIPAddress:/WhatEverPath (rsync -vP switch is "verbose" and "progress meter")
• Check or Correct Permissions and Ownership
  • chown -R apache:apache WhatEverDirectoryName
  • find WhatEverFolderName -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
  • find WhatEverFolderName -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
• If using Let's Encrypt SSL Certificates, move Certificates to the new server: /etc/letsencrypt/archive, live, renewal (there are symbolic links in the live directory): rsync -avzP /etc/letsencrypt/archive/ UserName@URLorIPAdddress:/etc/letsencrypt/archive/ (repeat for each directory, the "a" switch will preserve symbolic links, find . -type l -ls will display the symbolic links)
• Change DNS Settings
• Configure new Apache Configuration File
• Configure any new directories necessary: Log Files for Apache, etc.
• Upgrade WordPress or change PHP version if needed, the former recommended.

All of the above assumes the new server has the same services running like Apache, PHP, MariaDB / mySQL, etc.