Thread:Project:Support desk/Best way to migrate (1.14 - 1.21) to a new server and new version at the same time?/reply

Hi!

If you want to update to MediaWiki 1.21 (directly now are after switching to the new server), you should use PHP 5.3. For MySQL I would choose MySQL 5.5. 5.1 would work as well, but 5.5 will be supported longer (and if you already have 5.5, you will not have to do an update to 5.5 in the future).

I don't know how well importing/exporting pages from and to MediaWiki works. I would have done a "usual" update: Exchange the MediaWiki source code and then run update.php.

My plan would be this


 * Install server, PHP, MySQL. Check that all settings are OK for MediaWiki, e.g. safe_mode off, memory limit OK, write permissions for the server set properly - most of these things should already be set up correctly on your old server; you can use that one to compare and check.
 * Copy over all files of the old version of MediaWiki.
 * Take a mysldump of your database from the old server and import it using mysql on the new server.
 * Update database credentials in LocalSettings.php.
 * At that point MediaWiki is installed completely; however, due to the changed PHP version it might be that MediaWiki does not work correctly, because it still is the old version.
 * Do the upgrade to MediaWiki 1.21 as described here Upgrade.
 * Go, seat yourself in the freezer and relax (it is 35°C here and it feels like 50).