migrating from really old installation to latest

[fredricstosn]

We have a really old zabbix installation with several thousand hosts in it. I have just installed 5.4.0 on a new server and I need to migrate the mysql database to it.
The old server is running 1.8.11 (I told you it was old).
What do I need to do?

[LenR]

You will probably need to do a parallel install, then define a new configuration. You may be able to use the API to migrate hosts or discovery/auto registration.

The conversion from 1.8, at some point, has to update the history, if you have a lot of it, it runs forever. I never got it to complete...

[dimir]

Zabbix introduced automatic database upgrade since version 2.2 so all you need to do is upgrade your 1.8 installation to 2.0 manually and then point your 5.4 server to the database and it will complete the database upgrade. When starting 5.4 server, make sure to watch this process in zabbix_server.log so you know it's not stuck, it may take a lot of time, as LenR mentioned above.

Remember to make sure to backup your database before doing any experiments, Zabbix provides no fall-back functionality for the database.

So, first, get 2.0 sources:
- clone https://git.zabbix.com/scm/zbx/zabbix.git
- checkout branch "release/2.0", now you will have access to files in upgrades/dbpatches/2.0/<db engine>/

Now, follow steps

1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (skip 4, 7, 8)

in https://www.zabbix.com/documentation...lation/upgrade

If sql patches were applied successfully to your 1.8 database it should become ready for 2.0. Now point your Zabbix 5.4 server to this database and start it.

[cyber]

Considering that this 1.8 is probably on old HW and old components versions, 2.0 most probably will run there...but will 5.4 be able to upgrade it? There may be a fail with minimal supported version of 5.4...

[cyber]

Yes, Z5.4 definitely will be new, but if you have to point it to old DB to make an upgrade? I am not a db expert in any way, but can you just take DB files from old one, copy them over to new instance (with relevant db version) and just start it? If you have your old db on a for example 5.0 mysql, that is not a supported version of 5.4 (lowest is mysql 5.7).
But if you have that Z2.0 on something like mysql 5.7, then you should be fine..