Upgrading from 2.1 to 2.2

[pepperking]

HI there,

Has anyone sucessfully got version 2.2 going with SQL 2000?  I copied over the new 2.2 files to my alfresco directory and left the original repositry files that had all the SQL connection commands in them intact.  I then started alfresco and then it wouldnt start due to a updating schema error.  I was forced to go back to version 2.1 but even that wouldnt start now because the database had been somehow corrupted and i had to restore.

Will try to find a log to post.

[pmonks]

That approach is unlikely to work, due to changes in the configuration files between 2.1 and 2.2.  As described at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/General_Upgrade_Process, you should instead perform an in-place upgrade of a copy of the repository, in conjunction with an out-of-place upgrade of the Alfresco binaries and configuration files - this ensures that any configuration changes between the two versions get taken into account.

Cheers,
Peter

[pepperking]

OK,

Thanks for your quick repy pete.

So basically an upgrade involves backing up the old SQL 2000 database then creating a new alfresco database on the SQL server then make sure it runs with the new alfresco.  then restore the old database into the new database.

[pmonks]

Yeah that's the safest approach.  That said, if you're confident that your backup set is good or if your content set is so large that having two copies available at the same time is impractical, you could do a direct in-place upgrade of the repository (still using a separate out-of-place upgrade for the Alfresco binaries and configuration - that has to be done no matter how you upgrade the repository).

Being rather risk averse, I prefer copying the existing repository (by restoring the backup to a new database and alf_data directory) and upgrading the copy instead, since it makes rolling back trivial in the unlikely event that the upgrade fails (you can simply restart the old version of Alfresco and it'll connect to the old, non-upgraded version of repository and continue from where it left off).

Cheers,
Peter

[pmonks]

Oh and make sure that you copy both the database and the alf_data directory as if they were a single unit.  From Alfresco's perspective they are two sides of the same coin and therefore must always be treated as a single unit (always copied together, backed up together, restored together, etc. etc.).

Doing any of these things with just one of those pieces (just the database or just the alf_data directory) is guaranteed to corrupt the repository.

Cheers,
Peter