Moving Servers

[JamesBrown]

I am moving from one dedicated linux server to another. Can anyone point me to an idiots guide to doing this with the minimum downtime to my forum.

I figure making the domain on the new server, installing a fresh copy of all the forum files into it (the new server has a different file structure httpdocs, instead of htdocs so paths will be wrong, will this break stuff?

Making a new database on the new server with the same name as my current then restoring a backup of the live database over it.

Change the nameservers and see if anything breaks, is that about it?

Thanks

 

[Paul B]

Don't forget to copy across the /data and /internal_data directories as they contain the avatars and attachments.

 

[Jake Bunce]

I figure making the domain on the new server, installing a fresh copy of all the forum files into it (the new server has a different file structure httpdocs, instead of htdocs so paths will be wrong, will this break stuff?

Making a new database on the new server with the same name as my current then restoring a backup of the live database over it.

You don't need to do a new install. Basically you copy over the files and database, and then edit the library/config.php file to point to the database on the new server. The paths don't matter.