After having played with Movable Type and saving all data in the filesystem for a couple of days, it was time to migrate to an SQL database. As a developer for MS SQL Server or Oracle I do know SQL. However, I have never had any experience with MySQL. Although I am not the best man for this job, the installation succeeded.

Installing MySQL

MySQL is a true SQL Server. It is under an Open Source Development and has won rising acceptance in the previous years. It is offered in the so-called "Dual Licensing Model". Suppose you develop an application but you do not want to publish the source code. If you then want to distribute MySQL as part of your own application, you have to...

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When installing Movable Type for the first time, you have a choice of what database to use - MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, or the default - Berkeley DB. The recommended choice is MySQL for many reasons. MySQL is more stable, more powerful, more easily editable than Berkeley DB. With one simple command you can back-up your entire MySQL database (See Backing Up Your Blog). Many web hosts offer a cPanel or phpMyAdmin utility to manage your database, making it easy to make global changes to your weblog.

If you are using Berkeley DB and you change servers, or your host upgrades your server (this has happened to me twice in the last year), the version of Berkeley DB must be exactly the...

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Question

Can I pay Six Apart to install Movable Type for me, or upgrade my existing installation to the latest version?

Answer

Yes, we offer these services to those who have purchased a supported version of Movable Type.

Requirements Before We Begin

Please make sure to confirm that your host/server meets the requirements before requesting an installation, as the fee is non-refundable once we begin.

You can view the system requirements and get helpful information on choosing a web host in the Introduction to Installation and Upgrade in the Users Manual....

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Before you install Movable Type there are three fundamental questions you need to ask yourself, 1) should you really be using Movable Type as your blogging software?, 2) do you have everything you need to use Movable Type? and 3) should you do the install yourself or should you pay someone else to do it?

1. Should you really be using Movable Type?

As weblogs gain more public visiblity, more and more people are setting up their own blogs. Many turn to Movable Type as it is one of the more established and powerful tools available. Movable Type however requires much more technical expertise than hosted blog services such as Typepad and Blogger. The first requirement is that you know...

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Installing Plug-ins

Problem

You want to extend Movable Type's functionality and install a plug-in.

Solution

Installing a basic plug-in requires you to place a file with an .pl extension into the plugins directory; however more advanced plug-ins may have additional steps.

Discussion

Plug-ins are Perl scripts with a .pl extension that reside in the subdirectory named plugins under the Movable Type application directory. (If you are running an older version of MT that was upgraded and have not installed a plug-in before, you may have to create this directory.) Each time MT is...

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Updated. Originally posted April 3, 2005.

If you are using a MySQL database and your blog is PHP enabled (see Converting to PHP), you can use PHP scripts to pull blog data from your database to add customizations to your blog. For example, say you would like to have on your sidebar a quote, randomly pulled from a selection of quotes, with a new quote displayed every time you refresh the page. You can accomplish this by creating a separate weblog for quotes, then using a simple PHP script to pull the data from your MySQL database, and using a PHP include to put the script results into your main weblog page.

PHP scripts are a level of difficulty up from Movable Type, and require...

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Installing Movable Type with FTP

Problem

You want to install the Movable Type software using FTP.

Solution

Download an FTP application, uncompress the software onto your desktop and take care of any necessary configuration before uploading.

Discussion

• An FTP (file transfer protocol) program is used to send the files from your computer to your server. If you don't yet have an FTP program, there are many available for free. SmartFTP is a good FTP program for Windows, and offers a free trial version. Transmit is a good FTP program for Mac users on OS X, and it has a free...

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Right after having bought Movable Type there were problems. Fact is that the installation description does not contain specific information for the Windows platform. Because of this, it took some time until I finally managed to make it work.

Looking back after having completed the installation successfully, it is not difficult. Until Six Apart gives better installation instructions for Windows users, maybe my description will help.

Introduction

The installation consists of the following parts • Installing the Perl runtime environment • Copying the Movable Type components • Configuration of some Movable Type files • Configuration of MS IIS • Creating the Movable Type Database

All screenshots can be...

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Question

Which one is better? MySQL or Berkeley DB?

Answer

If Movable Type has been installed, Berkeley DB will be used by default. This product is not a real SQL database, such as MySQL, or MS SQL Server or Oracle. It is not managed by a separate process. The client application - in our case this is Movable Type - will access the data by means of functions running in its own address space.

I have no detailed knowledge about Berkeley DB, but regarding architectural questions it might be compared to MS Access.

MySQL is a true database. A separate process will be executed on the server. All data access will not be done by reading and writing the data files directly. Instead,...

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Question

When running the script, I get an error message that says Got an error: Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: [some error].

Answer

Too many connections

Your MySQL server is not permitting any more connections to your database; you'll need to contact your host for resolution of this error.

Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/path/to/socket'

• If your SQL database server is on localhost, but the socket is not in a standard location, you'll need to set the path using the DBSocket setting in mt-config.cgi1: DBSocket /path/to/mysql.sock...

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Many users are experiencing intermittent 500 errors when using Movable Type, apparently as a result of certain Perl modules being upgraded by CPanel. (CPanel is an application which automates the management of shared hosting accounts.)

The modules are currently identified as DBI and DBD::mysql. Preliminary reports suggest that reverting these two modules to versions 1.47 and 2.9006 respectively will eliminate the 500 errors.

Some limited testing in a non-CPanel environment with the latest versions of these modules (1.48 and 3.0000 respectively) has not produced any similar performance issues to date; thus, it is not yet clear whether the newer modules alone are responsible for these...

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Backup/restore your MySQL database

Backing up your database is an essential part of a healthy Movable Type maintainance schedule and critically important any time you endeavor to upgrade your system.

You can back up and restore a MySQL database in one of two ways: • Via phpMyAdmin • Via the command line

Backing up via phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is the most popular web-based interface to MySQL and is usually preinstalled in most shared hosting accounts. Through it, you can perform any action on the database including backups and restoration.

To back up your database, open your...

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Question

I have installed Movable Type and MySQL. When trying to use Movable Type, the following error message will be shown.

Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client

Answer

The message results from MySQL having changed an important detail with its latest release. With version v4.1, MySQL changed the way users are authenticated. Obviously, passwords are stored differently in this version than in previous versions. You can read more about this problem and how to solve it in Migrating to MySQL.

mgs

Feedback is welcome!

What do you think about this...

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Question

I have a MySQL database available on my server, and my hosting account uses CPanel. How can I set up my database?

Answer

If your host uses CPanel for your site management, you can use this visual interface to create the database. • Log into your CPanel (typically located at http://www.example.com/cpanel for your domain).

• Look for the option to work with databases - it may read Manage MySQL in the Databases box.

• Scroll down to where it says: Db: _________ [add]

• Enter your preferred database name. • Click Add.

This will create a database in...

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Movable Type 2.21 has now been released with a very important bug fix to the MySQL schema.

The bug was that the created_on columns were timestamp fields, which means that MySQL updates them when an explicit value is not provided for them--this modifies the Authored On dates of any entries you modify. This bug will not occur if you are using MT itself, but only if you try to issue an insert or update command from the mysql client, phpMyAdmin, or another client tool. Thanks to shanson for finding this bug.

Version 2.21 has an updated schema that fixes the problem. So:

If you have not yet upgraded to 2.21 or installed Movable Type: You can just install the system as normal,...

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Question

How can I back up all of the data in my MySQL database?

Answer

When using MySQL for your database, you can export the entries, comments, templates, and all settings into a single file.

Using phpMyAdmin

If your host has phpMyAdmin available on your server, you can use this tool to export your database. • After selecting your database, click the Export link. This should bring up a new screen that says View dump (schema) of database (or something similar).

• In the Export area, click the Select All link to choose all of the tables in your...

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Some of the more interesting customizations you can do with your Movable Type weblog require using PHP scripts, either on their own or in conjunction with the MySQL database. Some scripts are easy enough to install and require very little configuration. Others, however, require that you know something about how the script works, or how your MT database is set-up, or both.

Larry Ullman's PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites is a well organized, fairly comprehensive, easy-to-follow introduction to PHP and MySQL. Ullman expects you to know basic HTML and have had some exposure to programming. I took a basic Pascal programming class 25 years ago, but that's about it and I still...

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Movable Type is the premier weblog publishing platform for businesses, organizations, developers, and web designers. Powerful customization gives you control over everything you publish and the elegant interface keeps things simple and clear.

Features

• Unlimited Blogging

Movable Type offers the ability to publish an unlimited number of blogs quickly and easily through a single installation of the application. And the platform supports posting by as many authors as you need, with no limit on the numbers of entries, comments, or TrackBacks the system supports. • Powerful management...

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Question

When running an upgrade script, I see the message You do not seem to be running the MySQL version. Exiting....

Answer

Note: The information in this article applies only to versions below 3.2.

Certain upgrade scripts only need to be run if you are using the MySQL version of Movable Type. If you see this message, and you are not using MySQL for your database, it is safe to disregard the warning and continue to the next upgrade script.

If you are using MySQL, make sure you've not inadvertently overwritten your original mt.cfg file when updating the Movable Type files on your server. If so, you may need to recreate this file with the correct settings for MySQL....

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Installing Movable Type on Windows

Problem

You want to run Movable Type on a Windows system.

Solution

Movable Type has been developed to run on a wide variety of operating systems including Windows, although this entails some additional considerations.

Discussion

One of Movable Type's strengths as a platform is that it runs in a wide variety of environments, letting you choose the operating system, web server, and database. As a Perl-based application though, Movable Type has historically been most at home on Unix-based operating systems like Linux, BSDs, or Mac OS X.

If you have chosen Windows as...

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