Server move complete!

The move to a faster and more capable server is now largely finished. As am I.
Everything does run appreciably more swiftly, however: comments, posts, updates.

For the benefit of others contemplating a similar move, here's what I've learned:
If your MT installation uses a MySQL database, transferring it to a new server can be pretty simple. Just don't try to be clever and install a more recent version of MT, as I did. I just couldn't make it work, at least until I deleted MT 3.121 and installed MT 2.661 (the version on the old server) instead.

Basic procedure is to make a dump file from your old DB (data and structure!), run mt-load.cgi to initialize your new installation, then empty out your new DB and restore it from the old DB's dump file. An alternative is to set up two MySQL databases: one blank for the initial installation, the other loaded with the data from the old server. Before running mt-load.cgi, set mt.cfg to point to the first DB; after, reset mt.cfg to point to the second.

UPDATE: May flesh out the above a bit when I have a bit more time. As is, propagation of the domain went very fast. And a nasty surprise was that the comment spammers were deterred hardly at all by renaming the comment handling script (good thing MT-Blacklist was set up from the beginning!). Clearly, the spambots are now actively searching for the comment script by following the links. Time for a more aggressive approach to hiding the script, I think.

CORRECTION: The effect of renaming the comment script was greater than I initially assumed. Though some comment spambots are now following links, many still are not -- at least judging from the jump in 404 errors and drop in comment script accesses lately.

UPDATE: It's the morning of November 10, so a bit less than a third into the month, and 404 (page not found) errors already number over 3800. Prior to renaming the MT comment script, 404 counts for a similar period would typically run 100-175. That's a lot of spambot activity sidestepped!

For the same period, the logs show the renamed Movable Type comment script accessed 122 times as an entry page -- that is, called up directly rather than from another page on the site. Will be keeping an eye on that figure, as I suspect it represents spammers that have us bookmarked, as opposed to crawls by bots intelligent enough to find and follow links.

Posted by David on October 29, 2004 11:38 PM