Migrate Magento to Alternative Server

There are a few simple steps you need to take to move your Magento based store from one place to another.

First of all, create a full SQL dump of your store’s database and import this to a database on the new server. To do this, simply use the backup functionality within the Magento Admin. If you use phpMyAdmin things can become a bit weird.

Then copy all files apart from the contents of the /var/ folder to the web root of the new server.

Once the DB and the files are all in place, you need to edit the database settings in app/etc/local.xml to reflect the settings of the new server

Then you need to actually edit the DB and update two fields. To find the fields to edit run this query:

SELECT * FROM core_config_data WHERE path = 'web/unsecure/base_url' OR path = 'web/secure/base_url'; 

Then update these two fields to reflect the new base URL.

That’s it.

Originally stated in this helpful forum post