Migrate content (blogs, forums, etc) to a new drupal install (from an OLD version)?!
iamnoskcaj - May 15, 2008 - 17:48
Background:
I have an OLD Drupal site that has been inoperable (ie, just simply taken down) since Mid-2006. I have a database backup, as well as a physical copy of all the site's files. I can't tell if it's 4.6 or 4.7, but I will find out in the database and report back.
Question:
Long story short, I'm interested in finding out if anyone has a plan or notes on how to migrate the content OUT of the old database and into a new Drupal 6.x site. I am MySQL and PHP literate, and have NO problems in the command line or editing text files (should I need to clean up stuff before re-importing).
Any help or nudge in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!1
Thanks!!
Drupal has built-in
Drupal has built-in facilities to upgrade your entire site.
For the full unabridged perspective have a look at http://drupal.org/upgrade.
However, http://drupal.org/drupal-6.0 actually has a far better summary of the upgrade process. See also http://drupal.org/drupal-5.0. Check out one of the linked videocasts to get a feel for what's involved.
I'd recommend upgrading your 4.6.x to the last release of the 4.6 series (first core, then contrib modules), then to the last release of the 4.7 series, then to 5.7, and finally to 6.2.
However you may well find that not all your contributed modules have been updated to 6.x yet in which case you may need to stay put at 5.7 for now. Maybe even some of your modules will not have been upgraded to 5.x.
Once you get the feel for what's involved it's really not too difficult, provided that you carefully check the upgrade path for each of the contrib modules you need.
gpk
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www.alexoria.co.uk
Thanks...
I appreciate the thought, but that's not my goal here. I could care less about the modules. I'm really only concerned with the content. I suppose I could disable any non-core modules, step through all the incremental upgrades from 4.6 forward, and end up with a site that's sort of limping along. However I'd rather "start fresh" -- but I'm getting the impression that's not possible.
I knew that was an option, but I was hoping for a different process. I'll keep digging and fall back on this if I have to.
To be clear, I've been using Drupal for quite a few years... so I'm intimately familiar with the upgrade process. I was just hoping to "skip some steps" and get the content into a new site. I guess I see some of the challenges (users, permissions, taxonomy, etc) but I'm POSITIVE that the features I was employing (taxonomy access, EARLY panels or dashboard, etc have been deprecated).
I'll play with it tonight and decide.
Thanks!
Ahhh, I see!
There are one or two modules that can be used to export/import content, maybe you can use them as a starting point. But I don't think anything's mature enough to allow you to e.g. upgrade the core of your site to D6 then export just the nodes and re-import into a new, clean site. However node export and import modules do exist for D5 - may be a simple matter to upgrade them??
Or have a look at this http://drupal.org/node/184586 which will give you some ideas for the fields you will need and maybe you can just write a simple module to iterate over your nodes, outputting the required properties (to a text file or whatever) and then reverse the process in your new site using http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_save/6 (see also http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_form_submit/6).
You may be able to do something similar with users and taxonomy so that node author and tags etc. work smoothly ... permissions might be easier just to set up again by hand.
A few jumbled thoughts, sorry for any incoherence!
gpk
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www.alexoria.co.uk