Running a test server for translations

A common question we get asked at ICanLocalize is:

What's the best way of translating our Drupal site with minimum downtime and minimum disruption to our existing users.

I guess there are a number of answers, this is one method.

Create a test (Quality Assurance) server

Here I'll show you how to set up a test site that's a copy of your original site so that you can then use this to setup a multilingual site. You will then be able to use this test site to add the required multilingual modules, enable your languages and translate your content.

cp -Rpv /home/bruce/drupal-6.15 /home/bruce/drupal-6.15-QA

$db_url = 'mysqli://username:password@localhost/drupal_db_QA';

$base_url = 'http://localhost/drupal-QA';

<VirtualHost *:80>
  DocumentRoot /home/bruce/drupal-6.15-QA
  ServerName localhost
 
  <Directory /home/bruce/drupal-6.15-QA>
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

apache2ctl restart

Now you should have a complete duplicate of your site running at:
http://localhost/drupal-QA

You can now go ahead and setup your translated site.

• Add languages
• Add modules, i18n, ICanLocalize, etc
• Enable language switch block
• Translate the content
• etc

See our how-to guide for further info: Setup for a multilingual site

Once you have finished setting up your multilingual site all you need to do now is follow some of the above steps to copy your translated site back to your production site.

Note for ICanLocalize users: When moving the ICanLocalize settings to the production server you will need to ask the ICanLocalize team to change the settings on the ICanLocalize server so further translations are sent back to the correct server.