[Preview] testing new installation - a few questions

[#1]

Have managed to build a new version of my CCGI site on the new Plesk trial site and I must admit it was a lot less painful than my initial fears. The tips for using cron to unpack the various archive files as mentioned in a previous thread were excellent
I run Joomla 1.5.7 and phpGedView (genealogy software) and apart from having to set the line:
php_value session.save_path '/tmp' 
in my .htaccss file before installing Joomla all has been relatively plan sailing.  Some 3rd-party  Joomla modules such as sh405SEF required tweaking of  file permissions to enable them to install - very much a matter of trial an error and much internet searching for hints and tips but all is now well.
I have a few questions which I hope someone will be able to answer:

• When the new Plesk site goes live - will the existing Preview hosting become part of the live system or will we have to re-install our sites once more ?  If I build a new site on the Preview server will I need to do it all over again when the full live service is launched?


• Does the backup tool on the Plesk console backup any associated databases as well? I suspect that it just archives /httpdocs.  At present I'm using JoomlaPack to archive my entire site and MySql.


• Is the Plesk backup archive file a standard zip/gzip/tar file format? I don't seem to be able to open it if I download it.


• Do the backup archives produced by Plesk count against one's filestore quota?
  

Regards,
Stuart

[#2]

Hi,
I'm afraid I don't know anything about the backup questions, as I've not used this yet (Backups, pah ;-))
I can confirm though that your site won't be changed at the end of the preview period - what you build now will stay built.
Ian

[#3]

Thanks Ian
I will continue to develop the site in anticipation! Perhaps use it as a disaster recovery experiment first 
First impressions are favorable - despite not being able to run shell scripts anymore.
Stuart

[#4]

stuartp,
I'm glad you found the Cron Tar method useful. I was so chuffed when I finally got it to work, I just had to share it.
The neat thing though, is that using cron, most shell commands and even bash scripts should be able to run (maybe with just a minor modification to include the full paths of each command in the script). You've probably seen the guide I wrote for that too, but if not see the tar thread again, the "using cron as shell" guide is linked in the first post.
Of course, having proper shell access would be MUCH easier, but until then, the cron method has served me very well to run various commands (& scripts should be the same). Just put the full path to the script in the cron command box.