Upgrading from Movable Type version 3.35 to 4.0.1Edit
For such a large upgrade this was actually an amazing painless operation.
Backup
#!/bin/sh
# update for each new version
OLD_VERSION="3_35"
# set and forget
BACKUP="mt_${OLD_VERSION}"
USERNAME=foo
DATABASE=bar
INSTALL=baz
#
# Main
#
set -e
read -p "Please enter a tag for the backup archives [$OLD_VERSION]: " TAG
if [ "$TAG" != "" ]; then
OLD_VERSION="$TAG"
fi
cd
echo "Dumping database"
mysqldump --opt -u $USERNAME -p -h localhost $DATABASE | bzip2 -c > $BACKUP.sql.bz2
echo "You may now be prompted for your sudo password for the file backup"
sudo -v
echo "Backing up files"
cd $INSTALL
sudo tar -c -v . > ~/$BACKUP.tar
gzip --verbose -9 ~/$BACKUP.tar
echo "All done! You can now upload the new version."
exit 0
Installation
#!/bin/sh
# update for each new version
OLD_VERSION="3_35"
# set and forget
BACKUP="mt_${OLD_VERSION}"
USERNAME=foo
DATABASE=bar
INSTALL=baz
#
# Main
#
set -e
read -p "Please enter a tag for the backup archives [$OLD_VERSION]: " TAG
if [ "$TAG" != "" ]; then
OLD_VERSION="$TAG"
fi
cd
echo "Dumping database"
mysqldump --opt -u $USERNAME -p -h localhost $DATABASE | bzip2 -c > $BACKUP.sql.bz2
echo "You may now be prompted for your sudo password for the file backup"
sudo -v
echo "Backing up files"
cd $INSTALL
sudo tar -c -v . > ~/$BACKUP.tar
gzip --verbose -9 ~/$BACKUP.tar
echo "All done! You can now upload the new version."
exit 0
I then followed the advice at the official Movable Type site and did a clean install rather than an in-place upgrade.
The first thing I did was disable the "nofollow" plug-in and then I actually deleted the corresponding files from the server.
I then copied the new 4.0.1 directory into place and navigated to the web interface. I answered a few questions (database, username, password and such) and MT upgraded my database for me.
Finally I uploaded my wikitext plug-in (many of my entries are written using wiki markup) and as far as I can tell the plug-in will work unchanged on 4.0.1.
I really couldn’t be more impressed with the ease of the upgrade.