local wordpress using remote database, ubuntu, apache2 - php

Question

im trying to connect my local wordpress install to a db on a domain i own using the code provided here:
https://coderwall.com/p/ck8v4a/remote-database-with-local-wordpress-instance
define('WP_CACHE', true); $currenthost = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$mypos = strpos($currenthost, 'localhost/wpdir');
if ($mypos === false) {
define('WP_HOME','http://example.org/wpDir/');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://example.org/wpDir/');
} else {
define('WP_HOME','http://localhost');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://localhost/wpDir/');
}
with the above config i can open the site locally, it loads the navigation and recent post names correctly, so the db-connection seems to work.
i cannot use links and pages are not found though.
if i add my /wpDir/ to the define('WP_HOME'... and/or strpos($currenthost,... it gets redirected to http://localhost/wpDir/home/ (as it should) but i get an URL not found error.
my localhost dir is standard /var/www/html this is where my local wordpress installations are.
any ideas how to fix this?
update: i am back to working on this and it would really help a lot if i could manage to use the remote database for my local testing
i think it may be some kind of url rewriting problem but all my efforts to find a solution did not work...

Answer 1

not sure why it was so hard to find but i managed to do it (another way) basically by following the wp-codex here:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Running_a_Development_Copy_of_WordPress
using the drop-in method:
the code in my db.php file looks like this:
<?php
// paste this in a (new) file, wp-content/db.php
add_filter ( 'pre_option_home', 'test_localhosts' );
add_filter ( 'pre_option_siteurl', 'test_localhosts' );
function test_localhosts( ) {
if (strcasecmp($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/localCopyOfSite') == 0
|| strcasecmp(substr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 0, 17), '/localCopyOfSite/') == 0) {
return "http://localhost/localCopyOfSite/";
}
else return false; // act as normal; will pull main site info from db
}