[rt-users] RT internals

[Tim Cutts]

On 11/09/2012 06:48, Asanka Gunasekera wrote:
> Hi Tim, thank you for the reply, bigest problem that I have not been a
> perl programer, hope you don't mind me asking bit more clarifications
> 
> I am using Oracle as my database and I could not make head or tail of
> the relations :) guess need to sit by this and real go through the DB

I can't help you with the Oracle stuff - MySQL is the only database I
really know in any detail.

>> 3. if I need to migrate to a new installation (with out upgrade) how
>> would I go about this task (would it be as just to create the new
>> instance and configure all the plugins as per the current and just do a
>> backup and restore on the db)
> 
> Yes.  I've done that before.  As long as you're not changing the
> software versions, just copying to a new system, it should be fine.
> 
> Asanka => so this is not the way to do an upgrade? is it because there
> could be DB changes in the new release?

There quite frequently are database updates in new releases.  When
performing a major new release, what I do is:

Preamble:  Disable incoming web requests and queue email to the RT
server (you don't want to lose any ticket transactions during the upgrade)

1)  Shut RT down and copy the database to a new server (which is easy
for me since I run the database in a virtual machine and can just clone
the VM)

2)  Do the same for the web server, if it's on a separate machine from
the database.

3)  Perform the upgrade procedure, including any database updates
required, on the new copy, and test it, in particular any local
customisations you have in /opt/rt4/local.

4)  If everything's working, shut down the old servers, and re-enable
the web and email traffic, pointing to the new servers.

This is a fairly complex way of performing an upgrade, but it has the
advantage that you can easily back out of it if it goes wrong, and go
back to your old system, which is not simple if you do an in-place
upgrade of the live system.

Tim



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