I'm setting up a new webserver (replacing a 5-year-old box that is sure to die any day) and am not feeling comfortable with the directions given on upgrading, which all seem to suggest that you're merely replacing an existing installation with some newer files.

In my situation, I'm doing a completely new 4.2 install on a new box (Apache+mySQL+Perl), so nothing from my old 3.31 installation currently exists on that machine.

So, I'm not clear on a few things, such as:

1) Should I do a _complete_ installation of 4.2 on the new machine before beginning the magical process of moving/importing (?) my data from the old machine? Or, should I stop at some point (e.g., before running the setup script)?

2) The instructions don't tell me what files/data I need to bring over from the old machine...or how to do it. For example, I'm not very comfortable with mySQL (I manage, but barely), so step-by-step directions on handling database is appreciated. As another example, do all my /images contents (and other discrete files) need to be brought over, or is all that stored in the database (e.g., as blobs)?

Thanks for any help...looking forward to getting 4.2 up and running.
- Craig

That's exactly what you're doing. If making a backup copy of the files first makes you feel better, go right ahead.


Yes. What else would you do? (Seriously. I'm not sure I understand this question. You're doing new install, so do the whole thing...)


I'd suggest doing an SQL dump and then importing that into your new database. The old export format available through the 3.x series doesn't really retain all info. If you had any plugins in that install, you'll need to copy over those files, also.


Refer the documentation for whatever you decide to use to manage your database. Sorry.


Any HTML(or .php or whatever) files generated by MT can be regenerated by rebuilding. If you have files that are only linked to templates, you'll need to copy those over yourself. Images and anything you uploaded are not stored in the database, and will also have to be moved over. If you're unsure, just move it all over, and you won' t have to think about it.

The instructions, which seemed tailored to replacing an existing installation, made it sound like I needed to overwrite some old files with new files. Thus, I imagined there could be trouble if I generated all the new files and then copied over some old files from the old machine (i.e., the old files weren't there before I started the new installation to be overwritten). Does that make more sense?


Thanks, but that' s an example of my concern about lack of _detailed_ instructions: I've no idea how to "do an SQL dump" and I don't see step-by-step how-to in the MT install documentation. It seems like a task that critical/fundamental to the upgrade process would be spelled out a bit more clearly (or at least given a link to instructions on the various databases' docs).


Thanks...that's helpful. :-)

Ah, okay. If you're just doing a new installation, then overwriting the app files is no longer part of this at all. The important stuff is stored in the database. You'd still have to copy over/re-install any plugins, but that's it, and they're additional to the regular distribution, anyway so there wouldn't be any conflict.



...primarily because the MT documentation isn't going to tell you how to use someone else's software. This generally results in ending up supporting someone else's software because if something doesn't work out exactly right, "You're the one who told me how to do it and that resulted in it going wrong." It also doesn't even know if or what software is available to you, at what version(s), so this obvious-seeming request isn't that small or obvious at all. It's pretty likely your host has phpMyAdmin available to you, assuming you're using MySQL as your database type. A Google search for "phpMyAdmin export" will turn up any number of tutorials; there may even be one in their own knowledge base. Or maybe someone else will be willing to write one up; I'm not taking that on.