[rt-users] rt upgrade experience

[d tbsky]

Hi:
  we are using rt 3.4.5. i try to upgrade it to rt 3.8.0 this week.
i have tried several times. it is not success. i will share my experience below,
there are many things which are not in the rt document.


1. you should not touch the original rt system. so you need to prepare
another two machine, one to upgrade rt, and one to install new rt.
then you can compare the upgraded rt with the new rt to make sure
everything is correct.

2. make sure the engine you want to use. the default in rt 3.8.0 is
mysql and fastcgi. you should change what you want with "configure".
the install procedure won't look what's in your system. it still want
fastcgi even you have modperl installed if you didn't tell it.

3. install the missing perl modules with CPAN as the document said. i
failed several times until i realized that i forgot install one
important component, it's called "perl-devel" in my mandriva linux.
without it some perl mouduls won't compile.

4. although "make fixdeps" is success, and "make testdeps" is ok. it
is not enough. you will suffered by old and missing perl modules. in
my case, i need to upgarde the DBD::mysql and DBI to newest version.
or the script mentioned in document " UPGRADING.mysql"  can not run.
you can take a look at "rt.log" to see what is missing. i install the
"GraphViz" module to satisfy one complain. it still complain me it can
not find gpg at /opt/rt3/var/data. i don't have that directory and i
don't know what to put in it. so i just let it go.

5. install the new rt. it should be easy. remember fix the
RT_SiteConfig.pm. you can see what function is in  rt 3.8.0.

6. copy the old rt database to the upgrade machines now. i tried to
use "mysqldump" to export then import. but the binary data(attachment
file) corrupt in my upgrade machine. i don't know why. my old mysql is
4.0 and my new mysql is 5.0. finally i just rsync all the mysql files
from old to new, and start the mysql daemon to make it happy.

7. run the upgrade script "rt-setup-database --dba root
--prompt-for-dba-password --action upgrade". the script didn't
mentioned in the document. the document ask you to run many scripts by
hand.

8. run "perl etc/upgrade/schema.mysql-4.0-4.1.pl db user pass >
sql.queries". the syntax is error in the document.then run "mysql -u
root -p rt3 < sql.queries" to convert mysql

9. rt need to use utf8 to connect mysql, or the old data can not
present correctly. patch rt or modify mysql config files.

10. everything is done. but when i connect  rt 3.8.0, i only saw empty
page in "RT at glance". i can modify personal "RT at glance". but if i
tried to modify the global "RT at glance". it would give me error
messages.

11. I re-run the upgrade script in step 7. it can not complete
(duplicate tables). but it fix empty "RT at glance".

12. compare to new RT, my upgraded RT didn't have any column about
"bookmarked tickets". in "RT at glance" so i know my upgrade is
failed.

13. i think the old database didn't convert to rt 3.8.0 format
correctly. but i don't know how to make it right. the step 8 and 9
didn't do it correctly. maybe i should run scripts in step 8 manually?
or maybe i misses some important steps?

any suggestions? thanks a lot for help!!