Version to migrate to: Moodle 3.1.10+
Version to migrate from: Moodle 2.9.7
I have a problem. Our company is trying to migrate from Moodle 2.9.7 to Moodle 3.1.10. However, we work with chef-solo, so upgrading via the "upgrade" button on the site is not possible. Now I was wondering if it is possible to back up the *entire* site, so we can move the data thats on the old site to the new one.
The question is: How?
I'll appreciate any help. Thanks in advance!
With kind regards,
Derk van den Bergh
Take it that chef-solo is some sort of virtualized environment. Linux? If so what distro - Ubuntu/RHEL/CentOS/other? Any links you can share about chef-solo might be in order.
Do you have ssh access to the server?
A backup is really the first step. Backup consist of an archive of the code directory (like a tar file), an archive of the moodledata directory (like a tar file), and an SQL dump of the database. And then downloading those files ... or placing them in some archive system somewhere.
Strongly advise setting up some sandbox system to test the upgrade.
https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Site_backup
https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Upgrading
https://docs.moodle.org/30/en/Upgrading
https://docs.moodle.org/31/en/Upgrading
Something that will help in planning ...
Go to Admin Menu Server Environment
Update the component ... then in the pick list for version set to 3.0 as well as 3.1 and see what it says.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi Ken,
Thanks for the reply!
Chef-solo is a tool that is used to deploy a webserver via scripts. Using chef you can always be sure that the infrastructure of every server you deploy is the same.
Now to answer some of your questions:
Hope this answers your questions!
Kind regards,
Derk
Hi Derk,
Just wondering why your company would upgrade to 3.1.10, which only provides security fixes until May 2019.
source: Moodle Docs - Releases
Next year, you'd have to upgrade again, and go through the entire process all over.
Has your company considered moving the Moodle instance to a specialized hosting provider that can take care of this sort of things?
Hi Joost,
According to this link: https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Releases#Moodle_3.1_.28LTS.29
Moodle 3.1 is the LTS version, that's why we chose to use this version.
We haven't considered moving to a hosting provider because our chef setup works just fine, except for this little problem ;)
Kind regards,
Derk
Hi Derk,
As you can see in the diagram, 3.1 is an LTS release of Moodle, but even those have an end date for security fixes: May 2019.
Overview of end dates for security fixes:
- Moodle 3.1 LTS ==> May 2019 (first release May 2016) - life time 3 years
- Moodle 3.2 ==> May 2018 (first release November 2016) - life time 1,5 years
- Moodle 3.3 ==> November 2018 (first release May 2017) - lifetime 1,5 years
- Moodle 3.4 ==> May 2019 (first release November 2017) - lifetime 1,5 years
- Moodle 3.5 LTS ==> May 2021 (first planned release May 2018) - life time projected: 3 years or more
I can see why you'd want to use a maintenance friendly version of Moodle, but there may be a challenge ahead, as you might need to upgrade again next year, to 3.5 probably.
