How to duplicate a live site to use as a test site

I've spent months cracking my head over figuring out how to duplicate my live forum to local so that I can practice upgrading and experimenting with add-on creation. This is solid information that should be stickied for reference and headache avoidance haha!

Thanks ! Excellent guide
Now i Think it's time for me to upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2

Let's gooooooooooo

Excellent guide! As I prepare for upgrading my XF to 1.5 this really help me setup a duplicate easily! Thank you :)

Very clear, worked perfectly, thanks. I hate this 100 character limit as I now have to keep typing...

Help ful

Helps a lot. Nice guide.

Great work @Brogan

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Save a lot of time and nerves :)

Thanks for this guide it's easy to follow and very timely for me as I was in the process of trying to set up my own test site - I had no clue :)

I am needing to do this soon for my site once it goes live. Will be awesome to have a test environment! Thank you Brogan!

Nice guide.

Nice one.