Here’s a quick method for migrating your WordPress blog from one hostname to another, for example http://some.domain to http://other.domain (on the same server). This method was tested on WordPress 2.6.1 with a MySQL database, but should be universally applicable. This method assumes you have shell access.

Create a backup directory

# mkdir ~/backup

Backup the WordPress filesystem hierarchy

# cd /path/to/website/root
# tar czf ~/backup/wordpress_sitename.tar.gz .

Backup the existing WordPress database

# cd ~/backup
# mysqldump -u db_user -p db_name > wordpress_db_name.sql

Make a copy of the existing WordPress database backup

# cd ~/backup
# cp wordpress_db_name.sql wordpress_new_db_name.sql

Edit wordpress_new_db_name.sql and replace all occurrences of some.domain with other.domain
(the following example is for the vi editor)

# vi wordpress_new_db_name.sql
:1,$s/some.domain/other.domain/g

Create the new WordPress database

# mysql -u root -p
mysql> create database new_db_name;
mysql> grant all on new_db_name.* to 'db_user'@'localhost' identified by 'your_password';

Restore the existing database into the new one

# cd ~/backup
# mysql -u db_user -p new_db_name < wordpress_new_db_name.sql

Modify the database name in wp-config.php

# cd /path/to/website/root
# vi wp-config.php
define('DB_NAME', 'new_db_name');

That’s it :)