[rt-users] rt upgrade experience

Sat Aug 2 01:37:55 EDT 2008

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 8:44 AM, d tbsky <tbskyd at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Virtual machines are good for this, there are plenty of them these days.

> 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.

This can be fixed. We will be happy to receive patches.

> 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.

That's something people should know when they are using anything
originally based on RH's distros and want to install something new
that is not part of distribution.

> 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.

* we've bumped required version of DBD::mysql
* read doc about GPG integration which is referenced from RT_Config.pm

> 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.

you had to read mysql doc on migrating.

> 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.

doc has been updated

> 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

doc has been updated

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

RT has been patched

> 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.

where are error messages? could you point me to the bug report so we
can check and fix?

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

Sure it can. After this point you had to go back to step 5 where you
copy RT DB from production to new server.

> 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!!

Make another try with RT 3.8.1 that will be released soon?

Contact me on the irc to figure out what exactly happened with
bookmarked tickets during upgrade.

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-- 
Best regards, Ruslan.