Discussion Forum

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

I have been tasked to migrate a website running Big Tree 4.0 RC2 on an Ubuntu server that is end of life. I have no documentation on the site. This is my first time reviewing BitTree CMS.
My plan is to migrate to CENTOS 7.5
I searched the BigTree website, but I can't find instructions for migrating to a new server. Can anybody point me to the right direction.
I also plan to upgrade to the latest BigTree version once I am on the new Centos 7.5 server.

Thank you in advance for your help.

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Adding more information to my request.
Tim, I plan to migrate the contents of staging.<domain name>.org to staging2.<domain name>.org. I plan to use the exact same database, but create a new database user. I assume I will need to upate the DB connection string somewhere? Also, is the URL hard-coded in the database?

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Update #2. I have migrated the database and the entire website to the new centos7 server. The database name has bee updated to reflect our naming conventions. DNS has been set. I get a 500 error when I go to the site which I think is caused because of the DB connection. Does anybody know what DB table or php file contains the MYSQL credentials?

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 978

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

500 Internal Server Error is usually caused by your server refusing a directive in the .htaccess file. The most common one I've found is the php_flag directives in /site/.htaccess that turn on short tag support. Try removing those but make sure your php.ini supports short tags!

The database credentials are I believe stored in /custom/environment.php but could be in /templates/config.php (I can't remember what version moved the config out of /templates).

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Found it!
config.php has the DB credentials and URL and is located at <Document Root>/conf
Site is up and running.

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Hi Tim. Thank you for the reply. I have the site running on the new server on HTTP. However, when I switch to https in <Document Root>/config, the website only displays the background blue image. The current production site is running on HTTP/Port 80 only, and I think the reason why is the previous team couldn't figure out how to get the website configured using HTTPS.

Here are my four entries in config.php. It appears the same exact config file exists in <Document Root>htdocs/templates/config.php
        $bigtree["config"]["domain"] = "https://staging2.<domain>.org";
        $bigtree["config"]["www_root"] = "https://staging2.<domain>.org/";
        $bigtree["config"]["static_root"] = "https://staging2.<domain>.org/";
        $bigtree["config"]["admin_root"] = "https://staging2.<domain>.org/admin/";

        $bigtree["config"]["environment_live_url"] = "https://staging2.<domain name>.org"; // Site URL

I watched the Apache access logs while I refreshed the page, and I see HTTP 200 coees for style sheets and java script files.

I am running BigTree 4.0 RC2.

I feel like I am missing a config file or database table that holding on to the previous settings from the original website. Do you have any thoughts? Is there some configuration I have to do while logged into the CMS, or is there a config file or database table that I missed?

Thank you!

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Hi Tim, I want to provide you an update on where I am at with my migration.
I started out with BigTree CMS 4.0 RC2 running on an end of life Ubuntu server. I did the following migration.
1. Moved v4.0 RC2 to a LAMP stack CENTOS 7.5 server. Migration was successful.
2. Upgrade BigTree v4.0 RC2 to version4.2.23. This upgrade was unsuccessful and I rolled back the changes.
3. Upgrade BigTree v4.0Rc2 to version to version 4.0.13. Upgrade was a success.
4. Upgrade BigTree v4.0.13 to version 4.1.18. Upgrade was a success.
5. Upgrade BigTree v4.1.18 to version 4.2.23. This upgrade failed. I only see the background of the website. I did add the URL and DB info to /core/config.environment.php when I upgraded to version 4.1.18. However, it seems that I am still missing a configuration file somewhere. Also, <document root>/conf/config.php still exists. That php file is included with version 4.0.x.
I appreciate any suggestions to troubleshoot this error. I also see a mention in some threads about running http://<website>/install.php? Is that something I need to do to upgrade to 4.2.23? Where are the instructions to perform this task?
Thanks again for your help.

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 978

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

What does the source of the website's homepage look like when you're on 4.2.23? Also, you'll never want to edit anything inside the /core/ folder. The proper config files in 4.2 are in /custom/environment.php and /custom/settings.php (/templates/config.php was broken into two files).

You shouldn't need to run install.php again -- that is only for the initial setup.

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Thank you Tim,
I checked my website running 4.1.18. Looking at <document root>/htdocs/custom, I don't see either environment.php or settings.php. The only thing I see in the custom folder are the admin, inc, and email folders.
I downloaded the 4.2.23 upgrade, and it doesn't include either PHP file. However, in 4.2.23 under the /core folder, I do see the config.environment.php and config.settings.php files. Should I copy those files to the /custom folder?

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 978

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

/custom/environment.php and /custom/settings.php are generated by the installer, so they're not going to be there if you upgrade. If you want to try to see if using those files instead of /templates/config.php fixes the issue, copy /core/config.environment.php and /core/config.settings.php into /custom/ and rename them. Then move the appropriate values from /templates/config.php into those files.

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Hi Tim,
I followed your instructions. My website is working fine while on version 4.1.17.
When I upgrade to 4.2.23, the website doesn't come up. I only see the blue background of the site. It is almost like I am missing some config file that was new when upgrading to version 4.2.23.
Do you have any other ideas on how I can troubleshoot the error? I have looked at the Apache logs, and they don't provide anything that I could use for troubleshooting this issue.
Would it help if I turn on verbose logging? How would I do that and where would the logs be saved?

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 978

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Setting the $bigtree["config"]["debug"] to true (in /templates/config.php or /custom/environment.php) will turn on errors for you. It doesn't log them but they should be displayed.

What does the source code for the broken page look like?

David.livelsberger

Member

Registered: September 7, 2018

Posts: 11

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

Thank you very much Tim for your help and patience.
I changed the debug value to "true", and I am back with just showing the background of the website. I checked the page source, and I have these errors at the top:

<b>Warning</b>:  include_once(/var/www/vhosts/<Document Root>/htdocs/site): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in <b>/var/www/vhosts/<Document Root>/htdocs/core/bootstrap.php</b> on line <b>95</b><br />
<br />
<b>Warning</b>:  include_once(): Failed opening '/var/www/vhosts/<Document Root>/htdocs/site/' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear:/usr/share/php') in <b>/var/www/vhosts/<Document Root>/htdocs/core/bootstrap.php</b> on line <b>95</b><br />
<!DOCTYPE html>

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 978

Re: Migrate BigTree CMS to new server

David,

I'm not entirely sure what it's trying to load and failing on. Any chance you'd be open to providing me FTP credentials? It'd be easier to debug that way than doing guesswork.