Best way to upgrade very old sites

Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Number of replies: 28


Hello! 

This is a question that I'm hoping some of the long-time Moodle vets can help with. 

I've been running two Moodle installations continuously for about 11 years. Both sites are still running old Moodle versions (1.9.7+ and 1.9.8+) --- I know.., these are very old! 

I've been petrified of attempting an upgrade on either of the installations for several reasons over the years -- but, now, mostly because of server incompatibility between older versions and the newer (e.g., PHP and MySQL versions). 

I have two managed server accounts --- one that is current and running other new, up-to-date Moodle installations --- and the other, that is running the old-timey PHP and MySQL needed to run just those two old Moodle sites. Server Admin have been very accommodating, allowing us to keep that server running -- but, they'll eventually have to retire it --- and I want to have a solution for those old Moodle sites before that happens, of course. 

My questions are: 

1. If I do attempt to go through the traditional upgrade process for those two old sites (going up to 2.1, and up to 3.0+) -- at what point would I move each site over to the new server with the current PHP / MySQL? -- and is that an issue to be concerned about?

2. Is it feasible to just install brand new Moodle sites for these two schools -- and then just export / import the old user / student data, discussion forum, and course data? Are the databases between old and new compatible? 

3. Has anyone ever exported old Moodle data (e.g. to have access to student data, submitted student assignments, grades, instructor comments, etc.) within a separate database system? Like Google Drive, Airtable, etc.?

You probably know what I'm getting at with these three questions ---

a. If it's easy enough to upgrade, and keep all data in place, I'd go that route --- 

b. If the upgrade path is a mine-field, then I'd rather start fresh - especially if it's feasible to transfer the data. 

c. If both "a" and "b" are disasters waiting to happen, a work-around would be to start fresh with new Moodle sites - and just add existing and new students to the new system. And as long as we'd have access to the old student data (assignment submissions, grades, etc.) using a third-party database of some kind -- that would be a willing trade-off, in order to have modern Moodle sites running. 

Thanks in advance for any insight! 

Steve 

     

 

(Edited by Mary Cooch to clarify subject - original submission Thursday, 7 May 2020, 2:35 AM)

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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

"Server Admin have been very accommodating, allowing us to keep that server running" ... info plus that statement indicates to me the operating system is such that the server should be shut down.

Only option - without veteran experience, time, a maybe a lot of cash, is  C.

The only content you can use off the 1.9's are the files ... moodledata/[cid] where [cid] is a course id, /files/ Those you can see by humanly recognizable names and could be transferred to new servers in a file system repository ... *IF* there is enough space on new server.

Cannot export users nor content via DB dumps to populate tables in new site(s) ... too much change + if it were attempted, better have a true/certified DB Admin do it.

Other 'vets' might have different ideas ... we can agree to disagree! smile

'SoS', Ken

(Edited by Mary Cooch - original submission Thursday, 7 May 2020, 3:47 AM)

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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Thanks, Ken --

We (i.e., server admin) have been locking down the old 1.9+ sites as much as possible. Stopping various services, like some e-mail (exim, if I remember right), and so on.

We have managed server accounts -- so, although these definitely aren't huge Moodle sites, at least we have real-time monitoring and have been able to, up to now, approve security issue fixes (mostly turning off services) if they occur. Definitely not the way I'd want to continue though!

Steve
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Hello there smile I am just going to move your post to the Installing and Upgrading forum - hold onto your hats smile
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Howard Miller -
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Personally, I would have a very serious discussion around "is this the time to start fresh with a completely new site". It'll be better, won't have all the old junk you don't need and will probably be quicker in the end.
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Leon Stringer -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

It's feasible to upgrade, this will require skills, planning and testing. If you don't have the time or the skills then it's time for consultants, ensuring you get someone with proven experience of this kind of work. If spending money is a problem, any system audit would red-flag such a system as critically vulnerable which may help budget approval. But all the information required is freely available.

For the upgrade process interim servers would be required which meet the minimum and maximum requirements for software versions (notably PHP) corresponding to the versions of Moodle you must step through on the upgrade path.

Moodle backups are at a course level which can include users and their course data. You can't easily export individual users with their course data. There could be some approaches to using the existing database and Moodledata to migrate information but these would need specialist skills, probably no easier that upgrading.

Perhaps these old sites could be retained as non-Internet-connected archive sites and start from scratch with new sites.

A while ago I wrote a blog post about upgrading Moodle 1.9 to 3.6, the original is now defunct but saved by the Internet Archive.

I've echoed some of Ken's and Howard's points, but don't be petrified – analyse, plan and test to manage the change.

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In reply to Leon Stringer

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Hi Leon,

Thanks for this reply. You answered my other question on using interim servers -- which I would do if going the upgrade route.

One thing you mentioned, -- the "old sites could be retained as non-Internet-connected archive sites" ---

Is that something that would be done from one of our servers (i.e., access only from a particular IP)? --- or, just installed in some kind of wrapper (with the appropriate PHP and MySQL) on one of our computers?

I do remember setting up an IP re-direct (or something along those lines) from my computer before - in order to test a Moodle site moved to a new server, before finalizing the move --- but, that sounds different from what you mentioned.

Thanks!
Steve
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Leon Stringer -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Either.

I'd recommend having a copy of the site hosted locally completely off the Internet, e.g. a CentOS 6 VM on your intranet. This may not even need to be continually switched on.

Alternatively you could have a server on the Internet guarded by an external firewall that only allows access from a specific IP address. You would need to ensure that there's some way into the server (e.g. by the hosting company) in case there's a problem with access after this restriction has been put in place, e.g. what if your IP address changed? The external firewall is needed to avoid using the firewall in the server's OS as you'd be depending on an unsupported OS to implement the very security that's at risk. The same would apply to using Moodle's IP blocker but I don't think that was in 1.9. Presumably there's also a cost implication to maintaining this hosting.

If you're keeping the same domain name for the new site as the archived site you could use a hosts file entry to override this to connect to the old server as needed. You can change the Moodle site's domain name for the archive site, this may break manual internal links. There's a search-and-replace tool to update these but again I don't think it was in 1.9.

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In reply to Leon Stringer

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by AL Rachels -
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Search and replace was available in 1.9. Just had to access the page manually via url. e.g. In your browser - yourmoodle/admin/replace.php
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Out of curiosity, how many courses do you need to update and offer in your Moodle?

One thing that I have done is to use MAMP and move my old 1.9 Moodle to it, so that I can still access the old courses, like an archive.  You can consider doing this after you upgrade.

I believe that your 1.9 question banks might still be 3.8 compatible.

Let me understand, it appears that you do have a working version of Moodle 3.8.  Right?

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Hi Rick,

These are relatively small Moodle sites ---

One has about 1,100 users -- and 10 courses (most only limited to assignment submission and grading). Although, one course of that group is much more active than the others, with the majority of users, forum discussions (thousands), assignments, quizzes, etc. That's the course I was hoping to be able to salvage (student data, assignments, quizzes, discussions) ---

The other site has 250 users -- with three courses. Outside of the course pages (with just course guidelines, some photos, etc.), those courses use only assignment submission and grading. There are no forums, quizzes, or other interactive features used.

Regarding Moodle 3.8 -- I have two other 3.6+ Moodle installations currently running on another server. Was planning to update both over the next week -- and figured I'd bite-the-bullet and see what options there might be to finally get those other old sites taken care of as well!

One of those 3.6+ sites was a fresh install that was meant to be the future optional home of one of the old 1.9+ sites -- in other words, if I wasn't able to upgrade, was just going to start fresh there.

The other 3.6+ site is currently running another course that is connected to the busiest course on the 1,100 user 1.9+ site noted above. I was looking into the possibility of exporting / importing just that course into that 3.6+ site ---and--- then just starting with another fresh Moodle (on a different domain) to house the far "less-busy" (and very little to move) courses.

Thanks,
Steve
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I moved my old 1.9.19 site to a small board computer, in my case an Odroid XU4. Had it on a Raspberry Pi3 for a while, but the Odroid performance is much better, as I also maintain other Moodles for plugin testing of MooTyper and Hot Question. I also have these all backed up onto a 6 Tbyte raid NAS, just in case. Each Moodle version on the Odroid is still accessible, but only from my intranet via an IP address, and most of the time it is turned off.
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

A lot of people will tell you how awful it is to do the upgrade route.  It can be tricky but it is very doable......if you do not have a lot of plugins...I have successfully taken several sites from 1.9 to the latest versions.  It is also the only way to retain all your data.

As for your question - you just need to look at the minimum server specs for each jump as you go through the process - take it as as far as you can with the old server, then migrate and continue on with the new server.  Check that everything is working with each step.  Keep the old server in place when you migrate as that might be the trickiest part.

Plugins - with each jump (there will be about four or five I think - just work back through the release notes for each version), you will also need to upgrade the plugins - once you get to the more current versions, you will be able to do that automatically from the installer but for the first couple of jumps, this will be a manual process. 

Theme - if you are using a custom theme, get rid of it and start upgrading with a standard theme.  As you move on through, it will then just default to Clean and then to Boost.  A 1.9 theme is not going to work on a current site.

Don't be scared!  Backup before each jump.  If you hit something that doesn't work, start googling - there will be an answer out there on how to fix.

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
I don't think anybody is suggesting that it's not possible but I don't believe it's always the best answer. It needs some careful thought.

I'm starting to see users (often large institutions) who started using Moodle this side of Moodle 2.0 making completely fresh starts by way of a 'clear out'
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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Thanks Howard,

For all the courses, except one (that I'd ideally be able to keep in Moodle with all its past data) -- I'd have no problem starting fresh if there were a way to export and view that old data (student info, assignments, grades, etc.) on some kind of outside database -- even something like Google Drive.

It would actually be great to just have fresh sites - and keep the other 12 years of student data archived and accessible separately.

Steve

Steve
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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Thanks Emma!

Luckily, I haven't used any plug-ins with either of those 1.9+ sites (something I learned the hard way on the way up to 1.9) --- and the themes used are really just standard themes, with a header graphic added.

While I've been manually installing and working with Moodle sites a long time - a dozen years or so -- there have been long breaks in-between upgrades and moving servers -- so, have to research and re-learn everything each time.

If it's do-able, I'm willing to give this a try -- especially if I can try the upgrades on an interim server over a couple days --

So, I'm wondering, in this case, whether having a separate server set-up just to use for this purpose, would be the better idea. That way, I could have the server admin change the PHP and MySQL, as needed - as we're going through the upgrade?

The questions I have here are:

1. would it be easier to use a new site domain for each Moodle site on the interim server? If the upgrades work, then we'd just use the new domains from there forward to access those online campus sites.

2. If #1 makes sense -- then, I'm assuming that there will be a couple places in the database and PHP that would need to show the new domain (like config.php, for ex.) === I'm fairly sure I had seen this info elsewhere on the support forum - so, will look for it now.

Then, if by great luck, both sites make it through the upgrade up to 3.8 --- then, I'd move them into the main server and close the original and interim server.

Thanks again,
Steve
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
That sounds like a good safe way to go. The new domain will require the running of the replace tool (admin/tool/replace/index.php) which will take care of the database for you. The main things I have seen are plugin issues - really most of these have gone pretty smoothly. The good thing about doing it now is that the latest versions of each jump took care of the majority of issues that arose in earlier versions. I have always copied the site, run the upgrades, seen if there are any issues and then done the live site. If you are going to change domains anyway, and the old sites aren't very active then you could just go the way you mentioned. The only issue will be if there are a lot of changes going on in the old site. Ideally if you could take them down for a day or two at most, you could just copy, rename, upgrade, migrate and go live. Just make sure your interim server ends up with same specs as new server you are moving to to avoid any issues.
For less downtime, just download all your versions ahead of time and set each one up with the appropriate plugin folders and config.php - then when it is time to roll, you are literally just renaming each folder to your main site folder name as you go through - with the exception of server upgrades along the way and any issues, you could actually be offline just a couple of hours.
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Yep ... as predicted ... we can agree to disagree! smile

A question for you ...

Do one thing please ...
Login to your Moodle ... Site Admin Menu ... Server ... PHP info
There should be a line that looks like this:

System     Linux moodle 2.6.32-754.29.1.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Apr 27 15:30:33 UTC 2020 x86_64

What does yours say?

In picking a strategy above might be the single most important factor.  Don't think it has been mentioned yet.

'SoS', Ken

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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Hi Ken,

The 1.9.7 site shows the following:

=======
Linux host2.samuraihost.com 2.6.32-754.6.3.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Oct 9 17:27:49 UTC 2018 x86_64
=======

The 1.9.7 site shows:

=======
Linux host2.samuraihost.com 2.6.32-754.6.3.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Oct 9 17:27:49 UTC 2018 x86_64
=======


Thanks ---
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Mox nix about moodle site ...

el6.x86_64  means you have CentOS 6

https://wiki.centos.org/About/Product

End of Life for CentOS 6
November 30th, 2020

So before that date, your entire server will have to be upgraded.
CentOS hasn't had an 'upgrade in place' like Ubuntu/Other, but
there is one available as an 'add-on' as I understand it.  No, I've not used and probably wouldn't unless I tested first in a VirtualBox on my Mac.

IF ... IF ... I were to try that, I'd want to be safe and
would do a site backup of moodle ... code directory, moodledata directory,
and sql dump ... and archive those backups *OFF* the server onto another
storage device.

Am gonna step back now and ask, would the EoL change your strategy?

'SoS', Ken

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Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Thanks again for the replies,

We're on a managed server account -- and have been keeping (read; the server provider has been allowing us to keep) those two old 1.9+ Moodle sites running on a server that has purposely not run any PHP / MySQL updates, with the understanding that EoL is on the horizon and coming soon.

We do have another server account with the same company that is fully up-to-date -- and is where we keep many other sites, along with two other current Moodle sites -- and is where I'd be placing the "new" versions of the old 1.9+ sites.

I think the only real issue with the upcoming EoL is that there is no return to safe-harbor if anything goes wrong with the upgrades. Of course, we'll have to adapt to whatever the end result is.

Also, knowing now that the upgrade process will have to be a multi-step process, across several versions -- wondering (as a back-up plan) if there is a point (i.e., a particular version level) in the upgrade process that would work on a server set-up that wouldn't be EoL for a while???

For example, I see that versions 2.1.10, on up to 2.4.11, all seem to require PHP ver. 5.3.2 -- and MySQL 5.1.33. So, if for some reason, I could only successfully get the sites up to that point, would it extend their working life for a few years? Just thinking out loud --

Thanks!

Steve
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Uhhh ... why would one stop?   PHP 5.3.2 no longer supported by PHP .. MySQL 5.1.x no longer supported either ... versions of Moodle you mention are also not supported as well ... so 'extending their working life'?????   Why?

I had a 62 Chev Impala 2 dr, 326/4 (v8) at one time ... loved that car ... but as time went along (and I, like you, didn't maintain it) it got to the point when going to the gas station it was 'check the gas, fill up oil the and water'!  Should have contracted it out for 'flying pest fogging' in communities desparate enough to try anything but true commercial pest control.   Hmmmm ... is what you are doing with this similar?

'SoS', Ken




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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Ha! Yes, around 1989, I had an 83 Eldorado Touring Coupe -- loved that car, too -- but, the engine was always trouble. I heard from a mechanic friend you could somehow swap the dud of an HT4100 engine out for a used Olds 350 and it would live on happily for another 70,000 miles. So, that was the plan. But, instead, just sold the car and moved across the country to Los Angeles for a couple years ;)

Thanks, Ken -- Just needed to be talked off the ledge -- and not try my old move of keeping the worn out sites alive any longer than needed to move on to the new ones (yes, and the car would have rusted away anyway after a few more New England winters, with or without a new engine) -- so, I'll take that as a sign to put my idea of a partial upgrade back under the rock where it belongs smile

I talked with my server admin earlier today -- explained everything as best I could. They are really excellent. While they can't do anything with Moodle itself, of course -- they're perfectly willing (as part of our fully managed service) to do whatever is needed to follow the upgrade steps - incrementally updating PHP, MySql (and in this particular case, cPanel too - as it also had to be kept at an older version to host the outdated services) slowly and methodically, as necessary for the upgrade up to 3.8+.

They asked that I provide them with an outline of the Moodle version numbers and the PHP / MySql versions needed along the way -- so they could help put a plan together - and set up an interim server if needed. I'm fairly sure I've seen that list (or a link to that list) either in this thread or on the Moodle Upgrade page.

As of now, the plan will be to go for it - and try to upgrade both sites first (all the way to 3.8+). If that doesn't work out, plan B is to start fresh with two new Moodle sites - and figure out some kind of online or offline database archive setup to access the old data -- and some way to manually input all the currently active students over the Summer. Can put my sons to work on that ;) --- Going to stay positive, though - and see if we can make this upgrade work first.

Thanks again!
Steve
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Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators

No Eldorado here, just bicycles. The engines are fully bio. smile

About the incremental upgrade path, aka Moodle versions march, see the table I maintain: http://www.syndrega.ch/blog/#php-and-dbms-compatibility-of-major-moodle-releases.

That said, there are reasons why the old guard advice to forget 1.9 -> 2.x upgrade. Since you have a supportive IT staff, you could try. Please report your final solution here.

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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Leon Stringer -
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"some way to manually input all the currently active students over the Summer" – I think Moodle 1.9 had Bulk User Actions which allows you to download users, e.g. as CSV and then you can upload these to another site.

If it's some different requirement maybe start a new thread but hopefully this is something that can be automated.

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In reply to Leon Stringer

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by AL Rachels -
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Yes, just checked my archived Moodle 1.9.19, and it has, Bulk User Actions, that can be downloaded as text, ODS, or Excel. I tested the ODS as I don't use MS Office. It gave me these columns of data: id username email firstname lastname idnumber institution department phone1 phone2 city url icq skype aim yahoo msn country
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Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Thanks everyone!

Really appreciate all this info --- reading through all the replies now.

It'll probably be easier to reply to each individually - so the responses match the questions.

Steve
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In reply to Steve R

Re: Best way to upgrade very old sites

by Steve R -
Hi all!

Just wanted to update this thread - as there were so many supportive responses when I was last here in May, with my tale of woe concerning upgrading my two 11+ year old V1.9 Moodle sites.

So --- Here is how it went ---

1. Using your collective advice, I chose the full upgrade path option - from V1.9+ to 3.9 ---

2. Before tackling this project myself, I visited Fiverr website - and started talking with a few guys who said they handled Moodle upgrades. Narrowed it down to one Moodle expert I felt confident with -- who had substantial top reviews for his Moodle work.

3. Got a quote for each site -- was about US$200 for each site. Was surprised it was so inexpensive, actually -- and tried to resist kicking myself for not doing this much sooner ;)

4. Set a date to do each upgrade with the Fiverr guy. About two days before the upgrade date for each, I switched the theme for each site back to the Moodle default - and ran a full back-up of both installations on my side.

5. I set up an interim server account with Digital Ocean -- and created two "droplets", as they're called - once Centos 6 / one Centos 7 (I think he only ended up needing the Centos 6 droplet) - so, the tech was never working on the live "old" Moodle site for the upgrades.

6. I was going to use new domains for each of the upgraded Moodle sites -- so, I added those two new domains to my other server and updated their nameservers from with my domain registrar. Everything was good-to-go for when the new upgraded sites were ready.

7. When the time came to complete the upgrade, the Fiverr Moodle tech placed the old campus into maintenance-mode --- copied the old site over to the interim Digital Ocean server -- completed all the version jumps there -- and then placed the completed upgrade site on our new server. As we were using new domains, he ran the find and replace tool for the upgraded sites ---

--- and.., just like that each site was upgraded and functioning flawlessly with about 2 - 3 hours of downtime!

There were just a few things to note ---

a. Even though the upgrades were ready in a flash -- I didn't open the sites to students for a couple of days. That gave me time to go in and update all the course page text, as the fonts and colors we had used on 1.9 needed to to brought up to current html standards. Everything worked, though -- no issues at all.

b. Where the new 3.9 Moodle campus was now running securely (https), most of the old photos (that still had the non-secure http urls) weren't showing up properly. So, I just had to go through each and fix all the mixed-content issues. Just took a couple hours - and all was good. Some links also needed to be updated, as well -- but, all-in-all was an easy process - and soon enough, I had padlocks showing up for all pages.

c. Students were able to use their old "non-complex" V1.9 passwords to access the new V3.9 campus -- and I just set the new campus to require creation of a new complex password on their first visit.

And -- the most important thing for me with these Moodle sites was that the 11+ years of data (assignments, grades, access logs, forums, etc.) was retained --- and it was.., perfectly!

The new V3.9 looks like it categorizes new data (post upgrade), vs legacy data for reporting. So, when I look at student access logs, for example, there's a sort option to show legacy data or just current data.

That doesn't apply to assignments or forums, though, as all data is shown as usual, regardless of the date submitted.

So -- that's my story -- and I stand by it ;) It's a big relief to finally have these upgrades done and off my back. Granted, my Moodle installations were likely not as complex as others might be -- the only add-ons to the default 1.9 Moodle I used were custom themes. I had no plug-ins at all - so, only had to worry about upgrading Moodle itself -- but, there was a good amount of data over 11+ years - and 1,000+ active students - and all that transferred perfectly.

If anyone has any questions about the process I didn't cover, I'm happy to answer. Also, if anyone needs a referral for similar multi-version Moodle upgrade work, I'll be glad to provide that via messaging. The tech from Fiverr was excellent -- very professional, great communication, and the Fiverr platform works very well for getting this type of work done -- all messaging and quote details are all handled within the system -- and the fees are held in their version of escrow - and are not released until you approve the finished work.

Thanks again for all your help!

Steve
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