My understanding that making a test site is permitted, provided it's used only as a test site.
Here are my notes on how to do it. These are based on using a Linux platform, and having shell access.
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Cloning a test copy of a UBB.threads installation
Source board:
MySQL database name - foo1_db
MySQL user - foo_user
install dir - /example/htdocs/ubbt/foo1_dir
non-HTTP dir - /example/ubbt/foo1_dir
admin/MySQL log dir - /example/ubbt/foo1_dir/logs
cookie prefix - 1
Target board:
MySQL database name - foo2_db
MySQL user - foo_user
install dir - /example/htdocs/ubbt/foo2_dir
non-HTTP dir - /example/ubbt/foo2_dir
admin/MySQL log dir - /example/ubbt/foo2_dir/logs
cookie prefix - 2
1) Copy the database foo1_db to the database foo2_db.
The easiest way is probably to use mysqldump to back up foo1_db, and then restore the backup into foo2_db.
First create the database foo2_db, and if necessary, adjust foo_user's grants so that it has access to foo2_db.
Then:
mysqldump --quick --add-drop-table --add-locks --lock-tables -ufoo_user -p foo1_db >foo1_db.sql
mysql -ufoo_user -p foo2_db < foo1_db.sql
2) Copy all files from the source directories to the target directories.
If the target directories don't exist, create them:
mkdir /example/htdocs/ubbt/foo2_dir
mkdir /example/ubbt/foo2_dir
If the target directories already exist, delete their contents:
rm -R /example/htdocs/ubbt/foo2_dir/*
rm -R /example/ubbt/foo2_dir/*
Copy the files:
cp -a /example/htdocs/ubbt/foo1_dir/* /example/htdocs/ubbt/foo2_dir
cp -a /example/ubbt/foo1_dir/* /example/ubbt/foo2_dir
(Ensure that hidden files such as .htaccess were copied.)
3) Edit the configuration files to change the references.
Change all occurrences of "foo1" to "foo2" in the following files:
/example/htdocs/ubbt/foo2_dir/main.inc.php
/example/ubbt/foo2_dir/config.inc.php
Edit /example/ubbt/foo2_dir/config.inc.php and change $config['cookieprefix'] from "1" to "2".
4) Edit any other files that contain path references or otherwise need to be different for this clone. For example, the following files may need to be edited:
/example/htdocs/ubbt/foo2_dir/includes/header.php
/example/ubbt/foo2_dir/cron/php/doexpire.php
/example/ubbt/foo2_dir/cron/php/subscriptions.php
5) Delete the copied log files.
rm /example/ubbt/foo2_dir/logs/*
That's it.
