Exporting your site

Even though your website is hosted and managed using Drupal Gardens, it doesn't mean that the website is forever locked inside of it. You can export your website to a site archive file, which you can then use to host your site locally, or using another hosting service, such as Acquia Cloud.

Exporting your website doesn't affect your current website in any way. It's a similar concept to making a backup copy of your existing website.

The site archive file created during the export process includes your databases, themes, content, modules, site and module configuration settings, and users.

Drupal Gardens vs. Drupal 7

After you import your site archive file into a Drupal 7 environment, you'll see the following management and offering differences from what you experienced in Drupal Gardens:

• Access to the full Drupal 7 interface - Certain areas and controls in the administrative interface not available to you inside Drupal Gardens (either because Drupal Gardens automatically configures them for you or because Drupal Gardens offers enhancements to assist you in those areas) will be exposed.
• Ability to add modules and change code - You have full control over your site's code, including the ability to add compatible Drupal modules and functionality not available in Drupal Gardens.
• Your code, your responsibility - Security updates and code maintenance previously done by Drupal Gardens becomes your responsibility. If you would like help and support with your site, you can sign up for various Acquia services, including the Acquia Network and Support, or even move it onto Acquia Cloud.
• No ThemeBuilder - Your site's themes will appear exactly as they do on Drupal Gardens, but the ThemeBuilder is part of the Drupal Gardens infrastructure and is not exported with your site. You can still edit your site directly using CSS and template files. You can also import new themes into your site's codebase, and change themes in the Drupal administrative back end.

Exporting your website

To export your website to a site archive file:

1. Log in to your website as an administrator.
2. Go to Configuration > Site export.
3. Select from the list of reasons as to why you're exporting your website, and provide additional information in comment field.

   

4. Click Export.
5. After Drupal Gardens creates the site archive file, it displays a file save window. Save the .tar.gz archive to your local computer.

   

You can also export your website from the My sites page by selecting Export site from the More drop-down menu for your website.

Hosting your site

There are a couple of changes made to your site's configurations when it's exported. Knowing these should let you get it set up as a local installation using the Acquia Dev Desktop or other local AMP stack, Acquia Cloud or any other web hosting provider.

Usernames and passwords

For security reasons, when you export your site, its administrative user accounts are assigned new usernames and/or passwords and all member accounts passwords are changed. This ensures that if you choose to install your exported site on another web hosting, Drupal Gardens staff have no access and do not know your new usernames or passwords.

The new usernames and/or passwords are listed in your exported codebase in a file called credentials-[sitename]-user1_[random].txt.

• User 1 - This is the Drupal administrative super user and is reserved for support staff use while your site is running in Drupal Gardens. Once your site is exported, user 1 is assigned a random username (user_1 plus a random text string) and assigned a randomly generated password.
• Site maintainer - This is your Drupal Gardens administrative user account. On export, it is assigned your Drupal Gardens username and a randomly generated password.
• Site members - Your members' passwords are changed on export. After you install your exported site on another web hosting, let your site members know that they can reset their passwords by entering their email address as registered in Drupal Gardens on your new site at http://[example]/user/password on your newly installed site, where [example] stands for your new site URL.

Acquia site hosting options

After exporting your site from Drupal Gardens, what you have is an ordinary Drupal site. In addition to hosting the site yourself, you have additional options, including:

• Acquia Dev Desktop allows you host your site from your local computer. It will not be available to the internet, but it does allow you to perform further configurations on the site before making it available again.
• Acquia Cloud allows you to continue to use Acquia to manage the server side of things, while taking advantage of the full potential of Drupal 7.

Troubleshooting resources

While moving outside of Drupal Gardens opens additional customization opportunities, it can also provide additional challenges, given the large number of variables and technical issues that can come up in hosting environments. Drupal.org contains resources that can help you as you use your site archive file, including Drupal 7 installation troubleshooting.

You can also post questions to the Exported sites forum. Note that although Drupal Gardens Support moderators do participate in this forum, it is not a part of the official Drupal Gardens support offering.