Restoring old data from previous version

[CarlSeiler]

See below longer story. Here is short version:

I had to reinstall and have moved to fresh install of 3.20. I have backups made from previous version. These are both ZIPs (several) and directory style (one). I also have full tar.xz backups of the entire /bludit/ directory.

I had to reinstall and I noticed that the new version seems to encrypt backups. Is there a way to install old content from one of these backups? Is this a job for the Domain Migrator https://docs.bludit.com/en/bludit-pro/domain-migrator? I may be able to export from the old install (3.16.x).

Long story:

My Apache install runs on a shared BSD as username "nobody," content created by Apache or php belongs to user "nobody." Files created by me in the html directory are cseiler:nobody, but files created by the web application are nobody:nobody. This means if I have to "chown" it to delete the file or otherwise manipulate files (such as user uploads), I have to run a utility that chowns the files to me and group, that is back to cseiler:nobody, and in addition, the utility changes everything in my html directory to permissions 751. Occasionally, I have to run this and then chmod everything in the bludit subdirectory. In the past, this has required me to chmod files to 775 and directories to 771. However, this didn't work the latest time I ran the chown utility. No matter what I did to reset things, something made it so I could not enter new content. So, I thought I would start over and import my old content. I was on 3.16.x and installed a new copy of 3.20.0 given that I found it was available on Patreon.

[lastpictures]

I would actually only restore the bl-content folder, and from the databases folder, only the files pages.php, categories.php, and possibly tags.php if needed.

Reinstall everything else from scratch. I don't understand why Bludit encrypts backups. I don't use the built-in backup function because I have too much data. I essentially back up the folders via SFTP and then create my own backup.

If, as described above, you only restore the bl-content folder (which you hopefully have offline) during a new installation, it should work. It's also irrelevant whether you're updating from version 3.16.0 to the current version.

[indocreativemedia]

Hi,

Please make sure that cseiler is a user inside group nobody.

Then you can chmod all folders as 775 and all files as 664.

Files owner can be either cseiler or nobody, no need to chown.

If you think the installed cms is ruined, then you can restore the last working backup, and then upgrading from there.

To upgrade:
1. Download the latest zip
2. Delete bl-content and .htaccess from the zip
3. Upload and extract
4. Observe for any error

Hope this helps

[CarlSeiler]

I would actually only restore the bl-content folder, and from the databases folder, only the files pages.php, categories.php, and possibly tags.php if needed.

Reinstall everything else from scratch. I don't understand why Bludit encrypts backups. I don't use the built-in backup function because I have too much data. I essentially back up the folders via SFTP and then create my own backup.

If, as described above, you only restore the bl-content folder (which you hopefully have offline) during a new installation, it should work. It's also irrelevant whether you're updating from version 3.16.0 to the current version.

This is sort of what I did. I had to play with the .htaccess to override some things in my root .htaccess. I also now have a script that runs through and re-assigns permissions after running the script that regains ownership. It was further complicated by the fact that I moved it to a temporary directory and that messed up some of the rewrites in the .htaccess file.

If I were better organized, I would have written some good instructions for future me.

[CarlSeiler]

Hi,

Please make sure that cseiler is a user inside group nobody.

This is a key piece. I am not in that group and cannot do that. I have to run the script that regains ownership because I cannot overwrite anything in that folder that has been created by bludit because it is nobody:nobody and I'm not in the group.