To change the name of your database, you must create a new database and import the new one into it. This involves the following steps:

1. Backup your old database
2. Create a new database with the new name
3. Import your old database file into the new database
4. Adjust your website's configuration file

This article walks you through these steps.

First, you need to backup your old database. There are a few ways you can do this:

• Backing up your entire account in the panel
• Exporting your database using phpMyAdmin
• Exporting your database using SSH

View the following article for instructions on how to proceed with any of these options:

• Database backup overview

This will back up your database into a file ending with .sql.

Next, you'll need to create a new database with the new name. View the following article for instructions on how to create this database in your panel:

• Creating a MySQL database

At this point, you have backed up your old database into a file ending with .sql and a new database has been created. You can now import your .sql file into the new database. This can be done using either phpMyAdmin, or SSH. Choose one of the options below.

Importing with phpMyAdmin

If your SQL backup file is under 64 MB in size, it can be imported into your new database via phpMyAdmin. View the following article to import a backed up database through phpMyAdmin:

• How to import a database via phpMyAdmin

Importing using SSH

If it's 64 MB or more, (or if you encounter a timeout while importing) the only other option is to import it from the command line via SSH.

• Importing a database via SSH

The final step is to update your website's configuration file. Every website that connects to a database has a config file. This config file stores the following database credentials which allows you to connect.

• Database username
• Database username password
• Database hostname
• Database name

If any of those are incorrect, your site cannot connect to the database. Standard config files for popular software are shown below:

Software Config file name Config file location Concrete CMS database.php application/config/ Joomla configuration.php In the site's main directory MediaWiki Localsettings.php In the site's main directory phpBB config.php In the site's main directory WordPress wp-config.php In the site's main directory Zen Cart configure.php includes/

You created all of these credentials while creating the new database in step#2 above. After updating your config file with these new credentials, your site will connect to the new database.

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