Move Xerte installation to a new server?

Hi, all.

I've got an installation of Xerte that I set up about six years ago and have kept upgraded, and it's been working great. However, the Linux distribution it's on has been discontinued, and there's no clear upgrade path, so it looks like I'm going to have to build another machine and then cut over to it.

However, after six years there's quite a bit of content stored in the system, as you might imagine. Is there any way to move an existing installation wholesale to a new server? I imagine dumping and restoring the database will take care of (e.g.) configuration settings and such, but what about the content?

Also, could I theoretically switch from Apache to Nginx? Is Xerte pretty web server-agnostic?

Please let me know if I need to elaborate on or clarify anything, and thanks in advance.

Hi
basic principal is to move the files and database to the new server and ensure that the directory structure and permissions and database credentials/access is the same or update the database values and config files accordingly.
You'll need to make sure the PHP requirements are in place xot.xerte.org.uk/play.php?template_id=81#systemrequirements and also default upload limits etc.
If the current install is large I've used things like rsync to transfer the files server to server and it's usually a good idea to do a test run and check everything is working and then repeat or keep the initial test run as a test server.
Obviously that's the basic idea but you'll probably have authentication, dns and firewall stuff to deal with as well as any vle integration like LTI etc.
I think Xerte is server agnostic for the most part but most of the installs we run and test with are typically Apache.
HTH
Ron

I've never tried nginx, and thare are some .htaccess files in the installation (that are not realyy needed, but increase security). I have rubn Xerte on IIS, and also apache with fpm. So I would be surpsrised if nginx doesn't work.

After migrating the files and database, you can update the database settings in the file database.php, and you need to check and correct the paths in the sitedetails table (columns root_file_path and import_path)

Cheers,

Tom

Okay, I'm in the process of trying this now, and it's not going so well. I've got the database moved over as well as the application and its content, and the server will give me a login page (both on the regular page and management.php). However, when I try to log in, I get a 500 internal server error. The Nginx error log doesn't show anything, and neither does the php-fpm log.

Has anyone run into this kind of scenario before and/or have any suggestions as to where to look for what's going wrong? Thanks in advance.

Assuming you've checked the things I commented on 4 months ago...
Are the entries in the sitedetails table still correct or has the domain and/or file paths changed?
Check the values of site_url, root_file_path and import_path and change/correct those as necessary.
If it's not any of that set development to true in the xerte config.php and then check the Xerte debug.log as well as the other logs again.
The management page is a static login so that should work outside of any issues with whatever authentication you have set up for users.
HTH
Ron

Hi, Ron.

Thanks for getting back to me. The server name has changed, but that (and the root file and import paths) are all correct in sitedetails.

It turns out part of the problem was file permissions--some of the Xerte files were owned by a user that the webserver didn't have permission to read. I've corrected that and I'm now able to log into the management page, but it just shows the header and none of the actual settings. (See the attached screenshot.) The Nginx error log shows the following message when the page loads:

2024/03/05 09:59:36 [error] 343504#343504: *9 FastCGI sent in stderr: "PHP message: Failed to load language file for Xerte - en-GB/editor/js/vendor/jquery-1.9.1.min.js" while reading response header from upstream, client: 143.167.16.2, server: _, request: "POST /management.php HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock:", host: "xerted.shef.ac.uk", referrer: " xerted.shef.ac.uk/management.php "

I've checked, and editor/js/vendor/jquery-1.9.1.min.js *does* exist under the root path and *is* readable, so it looks like the problem is the prepended "en-GB". I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but any idea where that's coming from?