SITE UPGRADE INBOUND

Telos

Telos

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 4, 2013
Messages
89
Reaction score
13
Points
8
Location
Ontario
Website
telosalpha.com
Hello everyone

/TLDR - aiming to upgrade to V6 on Friday


StepAction
1Buy vBulletin 6 license (possible upgrade discount)
2Clone your site to a staging server or subdomain
3Update PHP to 8.1+, MySQL to 8.0+ if needed
4Backup everything
5Upload vBulletin 6 files to staging, run upgrade script
6Test plugins, themes, user flows
7Once happy, schedule live upgrade
8Repeat process on production site


The site has been "problematic" over the last few months. Numerous bugs and general weirdness have been battled with patch upgrades, RAM and processor upgrades and work arounds. At this point, we can't do anything else to save the patient. We have to upgrade.

Starting on Monday the site will be migrating (likely in stages, we are still talking with vBulletin on this upgrade path) from v 4.2.5 to the latest revision of vBulletin V6

Upgrading vBulletin is no simple task, and it must be performed in stages:


  1. Core code and Hosting Environment
  2. Theme and plugins
  3. Customizations

We are now in a virtual environment, that means we can clone the current production site and create a duplicate we can break without impacting production. We can do this over and over again very quickly, providing we can troubleshoot any issues quickly. We have vBulletin hired on for realtime support on this upgrade so hopefully we can get all the bugs ironed out by the end of the week.

If we hit our mark we should be ready to upgrade production on Friday.


If anything changes with the intent or timings of this project I will update here.
 
UPDATE JUNE 17

The site is currently on version 4.2.5. vBulletin is now at 6.1.2 for stable release.

There is NO upgrade path that avoids breaking functionality of the site. It was left at 4.2.5 too long.

All of the current plugins have no upgrade path. So, we are going to get the core code to version 6.1.2 stable and then start adding features and functionality back in over time.

EXPECTED DOWNTIME

vBulletin is handling this upgrade with us. They estimate 72 hours of the site being offline as a minimum, but it could go longer if they find unexpected things like code hacks, and custom work arounds.

The good news is if things go completely sideways, we can restore the snapshot backup to the time just before they started and at least end up back here with a (semi) functioning community.

I will update again with dates for this outage once we have that info from vBulletin.


__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE MAY 03

After waiting a week to hear back from vBulletin we finally got the license to upgrade late on Thursday. We have been test upgrading since then, but we originally scoped for a week, and that got eaten by licensing complications.

We are going to extend out testing out to be sure we dont miss anything, and I will update here with a new upgrade date and time.

It also looks like we will need to do a two stage upgrade, going from 4>5 then 5>6.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Dewey Cox said:
Will we need to re-sign in with our passwords on the new site?
Click to expand...

Most likely.

Write it down somewhere right now.

I welcome the new overlord controls!

And election night is still a go for this site!
 
Telos said:
Hello everyone

/TLDR - aiming to upgrade to V6 on Friday


StepAction
1Buy vBulletin 6 license (possible upgrade discount)
2Clone your site to a staging server or subdomain
3Update PHP to 8.1+, MySQL to 8.0+ if needed
4Backup everything
5Upload vBulletin 6 files to staging, run upgrade script
6Test plugins, themes, user flows
7Once happy, schedule live upgrade
8Repeat process on production site


The site has been "problematic" over the last few months. Numerous bugs and general weirdness have been battled with patch upgrades, RAM and processor upgrades and work arounds. At this point, we can't do anything else to save the patient. We have to upgrade.

Starting on Monday the site will be migrating (likely in stages, we are still talking with vBulletin on this upgrade path) from v 4.2.5 to the latest revision of vBulletin V6

Upgrading vBulletin is no simple task, and it must be performed in stages:


  1. Core code and Hosting Environment
  2. Theme and plugins
  3. Customizations

We are now in a virtual environment, that means we can clone the current production site and create a duplicate we can break without impacting production. We can do this over and over again very quickly, providing we can troubleshoot any issues quickly. We have vBulletin hired on for realtime support on this upgrade so hopefully we can get all the bugs ironed out by the end of the week.

If we hit our mark we should be ready to upgrade production on Friday.


If anything changes with the intent or timings of this project I will update here.
Click to expand...

So, what does that mean for us this week?
Is it business as usual til some point friday when it instantly switches?
Will it be down at points during the week?
 
Dewey Cox said:
So, what does that mean for us this week?
Is it business as usual til some point friday when it instantly switches?
Will it be down at points during the week?
Click to expand...

I get the impression we're right at the stage where the patient is as stable as its going to get right before they start harvesting the organs. Could go at any second though. Lol
 
Dewey Cox said:
So, what does that mean for us this week?
Is it business as usual til some point friday when it instantly switches?
Click to expand...

That's my understanding from his description above. The system clone (system B or the back-up) gets the upgrade and tests to eliminate any operating issues and at some point the switch-over occurs where system B goes live, all new and shiny. At that point I would expect we'd see something similar to a freeze and a prompt to log in again.
 
I just opened a "TEMPORARY MAIN SITE THREAD" on the facebook page. If the site goes down during the switch, go there to keep in touch.

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2143554996117080&id=1116804955458761

If you're not on facebook, well, this wont help y'all. :) Remember there's no buying or selling on there, so just dont or you'll either get banned if its found by the mods or you'll get the group shut down if its found by facebook. Discussion only please. :)
 
been nice knowin all ya politically charged old farts
 
Camo tung said:
That's my understanding from his description above. The system clone (system B or the back-up) gets the upgrade and tests to eliminate any operating issues and at some point the switch-over occurs where system B goes live, all new and shiny. At that point I would expect we'd see something similar to a freeze and a prompt to log in again.
Click to expand...

So is everything we post between now and then going on a fake site that will disappear?
Don't anyone post their "A" material til next week...
 
Dewey Cox said:
So is everything we post between now and then going on a fake site that will disappear?
Don't anyone post their "A" material til next week...
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how Telos will mirror the 2 servers, I don't think this outfit has a big budget for technological greatness. You may feel some loss and disorientation.
 
Dewey Cox said:
So is everything we post between now and then going on a fake site that will disappear?
Don't anyone post their "A" material til next week...
Click to expand...

Oh man, I was going to roll out my new standup routine on here before I release it on Netflix.
 
I might be putting Harbl The Cat down this week... maybe it's time to start a new account...
 
harbl_the_cat said:
I might be putting Harbl The Cat down this week... maybe it's time to start a new account...
Click to expand...

I will remind you of rule 13

13. We do not allow anyone to be registered under more than ONE member name. There is absolutely NO reason to have an extra account unless it is used for trolling and/or shilling purposes. If you are found to have more than one account, you will risk losing ALL of your accounts. If your household has more then one GOC user, please notify a site administrator.
Click to expand...
 
13. We do not allow anyone to be registered under more than ONE member name. There is absolutely NO reason to have an extra account unless it is used for trolling and/or shilling purposes. If you are found to have more than one account, you will risk losing ALL of your accounts. If your household has more then one GOC user, please notify a site administrator.
Click to expand...

only the sith deal in absoloutes
 
You gotta be forward thinking about profile names, they are forever.
That's why I picked one that could have no negative repercussions in the future, there is just no way to use my screen name in order to make me look bad.
 
This is how it starts...first it's a profile name change, then it's a gender change, then it's specifically tailored "safe" threads.
 
Swingerguy said:
You gotta be forward thinking about profile names, they are forever.
Click to expand...

That's why I picked one that is easy to pronounce.

It helps to know Gaidhlig, though
 
Last edited:
Swingerguy said:
And the sheep, don’t forget the sheep.
Click to expand...

They dropped that years ago after Rory got kicked. Word has it (ok, BSD) that the mods get new flesh-lights each year. Actually they mail them back in, the site owner shakes up the box live on Facebook then mails them back out. Wouldn't want to be the mod getting the flesh-light mailed back from the Lab of Deadly Prototypes.
 
Camo tung said:
I'm not sure how Telos will mirror the 2 servers, I don't think this outfit has a big budget for technological greatness. You may feel some loss and disorientation.
Click to expand...
Uh, that's how I normally go about my day, can I expect any real changes???

blacksmithden said:
If it goes sideways and some maniac named Jose Cruz is posting crazy stuff in the facebook ground, I don't know who that is. ;)
Click to expand...

I've seen that crazy Mexican dude before, pretty sketchy!
Although, it looks like he has a lot of fun.

Gaidheal said:
That's why I picked one that is easy to pronounce.

It helps to know Gaidhlig, though
Click to expand...

We had a border collie/blue heeler that was just nucking futz, so we decided we'd get her a puppy to maybe settle her down. The day before my birthday, I came home with a 10 week old doberman. As she was my B-day present to myself, she was my little party girl, so named her Ceilidh. We ended up moving about 6 times in the next few years, so always going to a new vet, watching them struggle to figure out how to pronounce it was a great form of entertainment ;D
(KayLee)

harbl_the_cat said:
I might be putting Harbl The Cat down this week... maybe it's time to start a new account...
Click to expand...

Oh shit Nick, I'm really sorry to hear that. Granted, he(?) has had a great run, it doesn't make it any easier.
 
Camo tung said:
They dropped that years ago after Rory got kicked. Word has it (ok, BSD) that the mods get new flesh-lights each year. Actually they mail them back in, the site owner shakes up the box live on Facebook then mails them back out. Wouldn't want to be the mod getting the flesh-light mailed back from the Lab of Deadly Prototypes.
Click to expand...

Says you. Rumour has it that thing is running a turbo’d 6V71 Detroit now.
 
kennymo said:
Says you. Rumour has it that thing is running a turbo’d 6V71 Detroit now.
Click to expand...

I dunno...he's losing his edge as he gets older. Against his wishes this is the pic of his recent first tattoo...

den tatt.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom
Back
Forgot your password?
Don't have an account? Register now
or