Move and Upgrade Multi-Store Install

[royhink]

I am in the process of moving 4 stores to a new Linux server from our old Windows server. I've started with "store1.com".

Per recommendations (Loren thru Guy), I've done a fresh install of store1's version, applied the patches, and I now have a running shell.

I was about to copy over the /data folder when I saw a difference in how the folders were structured. My old stores were set up like this:
----/data
--------store1
------------folders and files
--------store2
------------folders and files
--------store3
------------folders and files
--------store4
------------folders and files

but the initial store1 set up looks like:
----/data
--------folders and files

Am I set up correctly? When I add the other stores, will the build restructure this directory?

Should I have set the Data directory to /data/store1 during install?

Thanks,

[Jim]

Yes you will need to have a separate data directory for each store (otherwise they will overwrite the data for the other stores.
So the layout should be
----/data
--------store1
------------folders and files
--------store2
------------folders and files
--------store3
------------folders and files
--------store4
------------folders and files

If the first store is not yet live it would be easiest to just rerun the install and move the directory to the proper structure to start with. If the store is live you could move the data for the installed store to its subdirectory and then recreate the symlinks to the <storeid>.auth file in the data directory that exist in the ss and sc cgi directories. You would also need to fix the data path in the <storeid>.aa file found in the ss directory.

Once the first store is configured properly you should install the other 3 stores on the new server and specify the appropriate data folder for each. Once they all have been created you can move the data from each windows store to the linux data directory. If the Windows stores are not the same version of ShopSite as what the new linux has installed you will need to run the install again and choose the Upgrade option so the data will be upgraded to contain the new database fields that may have been added in the new version.

[royhink]

OK, Thanks. As the sites are not yet live, I've rerun the install.

When I copy the data/ folder, should I copy everything over, including the admin.aa, config.aa and .auth files?

[Jim]

Assuming that the .auth files haven't changed, then yes you should copy all those files also.

[royhink]

I overwrote the data/shopsite files with the ones from the old install and got:
********
Error
Your User Name could not be determined. You should have been prompted by your browser to authenticate by entering a username and password.
Solution:
ShopSite is designed to use your webserver's built-in authentication system via the Apache .htaccess file method. If you are seeing this error message, many times the solution is to edit your webserver's httpd.conf file (or other config file) and allow the use of .htaccess files in your cgi-bin by defining 'AllowOverride All' in a directive for your particular cgi-bin path.
If you are unfamiliar with how to configure your webserver to use .htaccess authentication, your hosting service provider should be able to help you. The following links provide general information on setting up the use of .htaccess authentication for Apache-based webservers:
AllowOverride directive
Troubleshooting
The ShopSite CGI Directory (containing the admin cgis like start.cgi) must be password protected in order to use the ShopSite admin tools. Do not put a password on the Shopping Cart CGI Directory or your customers will be unable to use the shopping cart.
*******

Is this fixable, or is this in the install?

[loren_d_c]

This indicates that your old store was using Basic Authentication login, but you installed the new store to use the new ShopSite User Accounts login. You can either password-protect the ss directory of the new install using the .htaccess and .htpasswd files from the old ss directory (you'll need to edit the .htaccess file to correct the path to the .htpasswd file to reflect the correct path on the new server), or you will need to restore the admin.aa and shopsite_1_db from the new install instead of the ones you copied over from the old store.

When moving a store(s) it is always best to maintain the same login type that the old store(s) had on the new install.

-Loren

[royhink]

OK, so I reinstalled Shopsite (on Linux) checking the option for Legacy via Web Server and ended up with a working store shell. The patches have not been installed.

I then over-wrote the data/stockmapagency folder contents with that from my old store (on WIN2003) and got:

Error
User Account is not enabled

At this point I brought back the data/stockmapagency files from the Linux install, copied over from my old store only the shopsite_db file and the templates folder, published the store, and my products/pages came up.

Am I losing anything by continuing with this route? I can manually set up coupons and credit cards and such. The old store did not have customer registration activated and all of our orders are exported to iContact and Quickbooks, so I would think the setup would be minimal.

What do you think?

[royhink]

FYI
Operator error: When I upgraded to v11sp2, the old store data came across with no errors.