RT 4.4.3 Documentation


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If you did not start by reading the README file, please start there; these steps do not list the full upgrading process, merely a part which is sometimes necessary.

This file applies if either:

  1. You are upgrading RT from a version prior to 3.8.0, on any version of MySQL

  2. You are migrating from MySQL 4.0 to MySQL 4.1 or above

If neither of the above cases apply, your should upgrade as per the instructions in the README.

These changes are necessary because MySQL 4.1 and greater changed some aspects of character set handling that may result in RT failures; this will manifest as multiple login requests, corrupted binary attachments, and corrupted image custom fields, among others. In order to resolve this issue, the upgrade process will need to modify the schema.

  1. If you are moving the database and/or upgrading MySQL


    Dump the database; with MySQL 4.1 and greater be sure to pass the mysqldump command the --default-character-set=binary option. This is necessary because the data was originally encoded in Latin1.


    Configure the new MySQL to use Latin1 as the default character set everywhere, not UTF-8. This is necessary so the import in the next step assumes the data is Latin1.


    Import the dump made in step 1a into the new MySQL server, using the --default-character-set=binary option on restore. This will ensure that the data is imported as bytes, which will be interpreted as Latin1 thanks to step 1b above.


    Test that your RT works as expected on this new database.

  2. Backup RT's database using --default-character-set=binary Furthermore, test that you can restore from this backup.

  3. Follow instructions in the README file to step 6b.

  4. Apply changes described in the README's step 6b, but only up to version 3.7.87.

  5. Apply the RT 3.8 schema upgrades. Included in RT is the script etc/upgrade/upgrade-mysql-schema.pl that will generate the appropriate SQL queries:

        perl etc/upgrade/upgrade-mysql-schema.pl db user pass > queries.sql

    If your mysql database is on a remote host, you can run the script like this instead:

        perl etc/upgrade/upgrade-mysql-schema.pl db:host user pass > queries.sql
  6. Check the sanity of the SQL queries in the queries.sql file yourself, or consult with your DBA.

  7. Apply the queries. Note that this step can take a while; it may also require additional space on your hard drive comparable with size of your tables.

        mysql -u root -p rt3 < queries.sql

    NOTE that 'rt3' is the default name of the RT database, change it in the command above if your database is named differently.

    This step should not produce any errors or warnings. If you see any, restore your database from the backup you made at step 1 and examine the errors to determine the cause. Consult your DBA for MySQL-specific issues. For RT issues, you can post to the community forum at https://forum.bestpractical.com for help or send email to sales@bestpractical.com for professional assistance.

  8. Re-run the `make upgrade-database` command from step 6b of the README, applying the rest of the upgrades, starting with 3.7.87, and follow the README's remaining steps.

  9. Test everything. The most important parts you have to test:

    • binary attachments, like docs, PDFs, and images

    • binary custom fields

    • everything that may contain characters other than ASCII

  10. If you were upgrading from MySQL 4.0, you may now, if you wish, reconfigure your newer MySQL instance to use UTF-8 as the default character set, as step 7 above adjusted the character sets on all existing tables to contain UTF-8 encoded data, rather than Latin1.

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