Transfer vbulletin to a new server

[Alexandra]

hi there,

I am running my vbulletin for more than a half year now and have over 8000 postings in it.
There are about 1000 registered users.
Now I want to transfer the WHOLE Board including all the registered users of course to a new webserver. A mySQL-database is installed on this server. How can I do this? Can I do a back-up of the board and copy this backup to the new server? What is the best way of doing it without losing any data?

Thanx a lot for your help

Regards

Alexandra

[Joe Gronlund]

Step One - Backup current database:
• Telnet into your system
• from the root directory, type mysqldump -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD databasename > /path/to/dump.sql
• this should only take about than 30 seconds to a few minutes, depending on your database size
• when it is completed, it will bring you back to the prompt
• verify that you have a dump.sql in the /path/to area you specified
Step Two - Transfer to new server
• telnet into machine1, and from the command prompt type the following:
• machine1$ cd /path/to/yourbackupdirectory
• machine1$ ftp machine2 (IP or host) - this should open a connection and ask for your username/password
• ftp> bin
• ftp> cd /path/to/newdirectory
• ftp> put dump.sql (should take no more than 30 seconds to a few minutes, depending in the file size)
• ftp> close
• ftp> quit
• verify dump.sql is in the /path/to/new area on the new server
Step Three - Install vBulletin on new server creating a dummy database (won't be used - you can delete later)
• (I figure you know how to do that!)
Step Four - Restore to new server
• telnet into machine
• create new database on the mysql (either via phpMyAdmin or telnet)
• from the root, type mysql -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD newdbname < /path/to/dump.sql
• this takes a couple of minutes depending on your database size, but you can track the progress either by FTP (checking the /mysql/data/newdbname and see the files appearing) or by phpMyAdmin (you should see the files appearing there)
• when it is completed, it will bring you back to the prompt
Step Five - Bringing it back online
• Go into your config.php and change the database name to the database name you created in Step 4.
• upload config.php
• Go into your admin/index.php and then click on "options" and change the URLs and verify the options and click "submit"