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By jillc on
After a mamoth effort I finally got the passwords to access the hosting for a site which looks like it was set up in 2009 (but mabe earlier). I am totally ignorant about Drupal. But this site cannot stay on this server - the hosting company are just too difficult to deal with.
I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right thing. I found an UPGRADE.txt file which is headed // $Id: UPGRADE.txt,v 1.12 2008/01/04 16:15:58 goba Exp $
Does this mean I am using Drupal 1.2 ? Surely not?
How can I find out what version I am using? Does it matter? Presumably I need to upgrade anyway?
Is there a nice database backup software I can use like Akeeba for Joomla?
I presume that the best option is to take a backup of the site and transfer it to my wamp folder on my pc, upgrade to the latest Drupal, take another backup and upload to the new server? Does this sound right?
Sorry for such noob questions. Can you give me some advice - but don't tell me to talk to the site's original developer.
Tks. Jill.
Comments
Welcome!
Welcome!
Is there a file called CHANGELOG.txt? If so, the top entry should be the current version you have. I just downloaded Drupal 4.7.11 (the last version of Drupal 4) and it had text "close" to what you mention... // $Id: CHANGELOG.txt,v 1.117.2.18 2008/01/10 22:18:19 killes Exp $
I'd say the site is most likely Drupal 4 "point something" (not sure precisely which sub-version).
If you decide to upgrade the site from there all the way to Drupal 6 or Drupal 7 (the currently supported releases), then you will need to upgrade first to the last version of Drupal 4, then upgrade that to Drupal 5, then Drupal 6, then Drupal 7. Upgrades have to pass through each major version (though you don't have to install all of the minor updates between).
In most cases, I'd recommend "not" upgrading a Drupal site that old though. It will be pretty crazy. It's likely that very few of the common modules from the 4.x era are still around today (some may be of course, but a lot changes in Drupal and new best practices cause many old modules to be absorbed by other newer better modules). In any case, various aspects of the site will have to be rethought, matched up with alternate modules to achieve some of the desired functionality, etc. You can certainly try the upgrades though - if the site is relatively simple, it may work just fine. In all cases, the theme will have to be remade pretty much from scratch to get it from Drupal 4.x to 7.
If you decide not to "upgrade" the alternative is to "migrate" the data into a clean Drupal 7 site. There are a variety of modules (search the module directory for "migrate" for instance) to help you extract data from one database, and import it into Drupal.
Regarding your question about database backup software... yes, the module you're looking for is Backup and Migrate. I don't know though if it has a version as far back as Drupal 4.x... your best bet then would be to get a backup through phpMyAdmin if the host control panel has it, or any database tool they offer. If not, then you can likely install phpMyAdmin yourself in a sub-directory on the host. There is a "settings.php" file (probably in /sites/default, but I'm not sure with Drupal 4 - been too long for me haha) which will tell you the database name, database user and password.
Also, yes, you'll want to get a backup of the site files and database and install it on your local WAMP server to work with. When the site upgrade is done, you'll upload the files and import a copy of your database to the remote host.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
Thank you very much for your
Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply. I discovered the CHANGELOG.TXT file and right at the top it says Drupal 6.1 so that's a relief!
What I am thinking I should do is transfer the site as is to the new server and then install Drupal 7 on my system and upgrade it there which would give me some time to learn how to use Drupal before I upgrade it on the new server. In the meantime I'll have a look at Backup and Migrate.
Thanks again.