[development] D6 Content Migration to another D6 Installation

[Earnie Boyd]

As If Productions wrote:
> At 02:15 PM 8/11/2010, Phil Glanville wrote:
>> would it (in theory) be possible to copy just 'node' or content
>> specific db tables without causing serious problems?
>
> Not only in theory, but in practice! I would never depend on a module to
> do this for me, and I do a lot of migrations. If the two sites are
> literally identical (content types, fields, taxonomy), you can just
> directly copy the old tables to the new database. The node and
> node_revisions tables are particularly safe in this regard. CCK stuff
> requires more finesse. In complex cases, a few simple PHP scripts can
> connect to both databases and directly query the specific tables you
> wish to address. These scripts can also handle any data manipulation
> that needs to occur in order to make the old schema data fit the new
> schema (if/when there are any differences between them). Basically you
> write scripts that SELECT data from the old DB and manipulate them one
> row at a time into an INSERT query on the other DB. The only
> prerequisite is that you need to be intimately familiar with the DB
> schemas, and how various Drupal tables relate to each other.
>

There is also the settings.php file that you can simply finesse into 
using the nodes from one site in another.  Then there is no need to 
copy.  However, if you're moving away from one host to another and want 
to copy the DB, simply shutdown the database and tar it up with a caveat 
that the DB engine versions must match.  Otherwise DB dump and import 
into the new DB.

-- 
Earnie
-- http://progw.com
-- http://www.for-my-kids.com