barteled

Have you ever stared at the upgrade button of your favorite plugin with a deep foreboding feeling of what lies ahead? Will this bring your live site to its knees? Or have you wanted to test your new exciting theme without prematurely showing it to the world?
Enter the Sandbox plugin. With two simple clicks an entire testing site is created using your existing hosting provider. No more copying down to a complex local test setup or living dangerously on a live site. A complete independent sandbox, unavailable to the general public and search engines, can be created quickly and simply. You can even create multiple sandboxes to test different iterations of your site.
There is not that much more to say, it’s that easy!
What can I test with this?
Pretty much anything, but here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>Plugin upgrades</li>
<li>Theme changes</li>
<li>Setting changes</li>
<li>Even full, WordPress upgrades</li>
<li>Plugin conflicts? Create a sandbox and disable one at a time.</li>
</ul>
Ok, but how does it work?
When you add a new sandbox, a couple simple parameters are required to differentiate it from other sandboxes. A status is displayed as the sandbox is being created. This can take some time depending on the size of your WordPress install.
Basic steps to creating the sandbox:
<ol>
<li>Copy the tables 
Database tables are copied to new tables with a different prefix and various data within the tables is updated to reflect the sandbox prefix.</li>
<li>Copy the files 
All files are copied to a new folder under the sandbox folder.</li>
<li>Update the configuration 
The configuration file within the sandbox is updated to support the unique sandbox database prefix.</li>
</ol>
Once activated, only your browser can get to the sandbox installation. You can return the live site at anytime by clicking the link in the notice at the top of the admin interface.
Can I use my existing developer tools to edit the sandbox?
Sure. Tools such as Dreamweaver can update the files located in the sandbox directory. A full path is available on the edit screen of the sandbox. Database files can be modified as well. All sandbox tables will have the prefix displayed on the edit screen of the sandbox.
Another beer and coffee fueled creation of <a href="http://think-bowl.com/" title="It's less of a tank and more of a bowl." rel="nofollow ugc">Think Bowl</a>

Sandbox

Create a completely independent test site using existing hosting that is only available to administrators.

Rocketa

PatchOn is a solution for safely updating the plugins, themes, and core of your WordPress site. Before applying an update to production, it reproduces your site’s configuration in a staging environment, applies the update there, and runs a screenshot comparison (Visual Regression Test) to check for any problems. This plugin acts as the connector between your WordPress site and PatchOn.
This plugin requires the PatchOn service (<a href="https://patchon.jp/" rel="nofollow ugc">patchon.jp</a>) and does not function on its own. No account is required to get started. Immediately after activation it performs no external communication, and a consent screen is shown in the admin area. Outbound communication with PatchOn begins only after the user explicitly clicks the “Agree and Start” button on that consent screen, which registers the site anonymously. A PatchOn account is needed only to view detailed inspection results in the dashboard or to upgrade to a paid plan.
<h4>Main Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Pre-inspection that simulates updates in a staging environment, with results displayed in your dashboard</li>
<li>Backup of site files and database before applying updates</li>
<li>Production rollout of updates that have passed inspection</li>
</ul>
This plugin (the free distribution on WordPress.org) does not write to your site files (<code>wp-content</code>, <code>mu-plugins</code>, theme directories, etc.), even when it detects a problem. AI auto-repair, which writes patched code to <code>mu-plugins</code> or the active child theme, is provided by the separately distributed PatchOn Agent Pro extension plugin (available to PatchOn Standard / Business plan subscribers).
<h4>Data Sent</h4>
After the user has consented on the consent screen, when they run a “Pre-inspection” or “Apply update” operation, the plugin sends the following data to PatchOn and related external services. See the <a href="https://patchon.jp/privacy-policy" rel="nofollow ugc">Privacy Policy</a> for details.
<ul>
<li>Site URL / WordPress version / PHP version / DB version</li>
<li>List and versions of installed plugins, themes, and MU plugins</li>
<li>Site files prior to update application (child theme / mu-plugins / wp-config.php, used for backup)</li>
<li>Contents of WordPress debug.log (used to detect issues)</li>
<li>Lightweight database dump (only at pre-inspection time; tables and columns containing personal information are excluded)</li>
</ul>
<h3>External services</h3>
This plugin depends on the following external services. No external communication is performed merely by activating the plugin. Communication starts only after the user explicitly clicks the “Agree and Start” button on the consent screen shown on first use.
<h4>PatchOn API (https://patchon.jp and its subdomains)</h4>
The backend for all inspection, repair, update, and database-dump operations. Two host names are used, both operated by Rocketa Inc. and routed to PatchOn’s infrastructure:
<ul>
<li><code>https://patchon.jp/api/*</code> — site registration, pre-inspection control, apply-update control, billing</li>
<li><code>https://dump.patchon.jp/*</code> — database-dump control endpoints and signed-URL chunk uploads used during pre-inspection (the database dump is excluded from the data sent over <code>patchon.jp/api/*</code>)</li>
</ul>
Provider: Rocketa Inc. (rocketa.co.jp)
When data is sent:
<ul>
<li>On click of the “Agree and Start” consent button (one-time): anonymous site registration and UUID issuance</li>
<li>When the user runs a “Pre-inspection”: list of plugins / themes, debug.log, lightweight database dump</li>
<li>When the user runs an “Apply update”: backup files, application result</li>
</ul>
What is sent: see the “Data Sent” section above
<ul>
<li>Terms of Service: https://patchon.jp/terms</li>
<li>Privacy Policy: https://patchon.jp/privacy-policy</li>
<li>Subprocessors: https://patchon.jp/subprocessors</li>
</ul>
<h4>AWS S3 (Tokyo region, accessed via PatchOn)</h4>
Storage destination for the pre-update full-site backup (tar.gz). File uploads are performed only against pre-signed URLs issued by <code>https://patchon.jp/api/*</code> on a per-request basis. The customer site does not hold any S3 credentials.
<ul>
<li>Provider: Amazon Web Services, Inc.</li>
<li>Endpoint: https://*.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com (pre-signed URLs only)</li>
<li>When data is sent: when the user runs an “Apply update”</li>
<li>What is sent: pre-update site files (tar.gz)</li>
<li>AWS Privacy: https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/</li>
</ul>

PatchOn Agent

Connector plugin that securely links your site to the PatchOn AI automated update verification service.

Sandbox vs PatchOn Agent