One man’s voice Thoughts, rants and commentary from a husband, father of five and professional web geek

A developer’s computer migration

You would have thought that I would have learned from my recent migration from Windows to Linux that there are steps to follow when moving computers. Apparently I have a lot yet to learn about this subject.

Head to my steps on migrating computers.

As I sit here and think about the stress of moving from one PC to another at work, I am again plagued with all of the things that I need to take care of the ensure that when I start using my new machine that it will be able to perform for me the way my old machine did. Only better. Because, after all, it is a new machine.

I am wondering if I will actually ever get all of the stuff out of the old computer that I need to have. I know I can take care of the obvious. Those are easy. Things like browsers, editors, the AMP bits of the (L|W|M)AMP stack. The things that trouble me the most are things like IP addresses that are stored in communication utilities like Putty and WinSCP. Or things like passwords that I have saved in FileZilla or FireFTP. Those are things that I never look at beyond once and never think to write down because I have them where I need them.

So I am now looking through the things that are going to need to be set up in order for me to do my job. And as I look at these things I find myself thinking that it might be a good idea to offer this up for others as well. So here is my list of things that I needed to do in order to allow myself to work on my new machine.

Migration list when moving to a new computer

1. Apache web server:
   • Make sure when setting up a new Apache web server locally that you look closely at the modules that are currently included on your old setup.
   • Also make sure to copy your httpd.conf and any associated conf files that are included by the Apache configuration file, including all virtual hosts that you have setup.
   • Of special interest here is the hosts files that you may have edited to set up local virtual hosts. For good measure make a copy of your hosts file for migration to the new machine.
2. MySQL database server:
   • Make sure this is installed before installing PHP. After it is installed make sure to edit the my.cnf file so that it closely resembles or even matches the current machine's database server config.
   • Install any MySQL client tools that you are using like MySQL Administrator, MySQL Query Browser, MySQL Workbench, Navicat and/or SQLYog.
   • Make sure you have a backup of any databases that you intend to use locally, including the information_schema and mysql databases.
   • Take note of any stored connection details for each client tool, including host names, user names, passwords, SSH tunnels, HTTP tunnels.
3. PHP:
   • Install PHP after your web server (duh!) and after your database server(s). I mention this because you will want the database server client libraries installed before installing PHP so PHP can hook into them as needed with as little headache as possible.
   • Make sure to also setup any and all PHP extensions that are currently setup on your "old" machine, taking note of packages that might now be in the PHP core that will not need to be included.
   • Take note of the fact that many packages (including MySQL/MySQLi and cURL) have to be handled in a bit of different way because of the use of client libraries. Specifically, on Windows, there are several DLL files that need to be copied into a system path folder to allow PHP to see the client library hooks.
   • Test each extension to make sure they are working as expected. Also use this time to test any local virtual hosts that are set up in the hosts file.
4. Transfer and Source Control:
   • Get your source code control apps set up. This includes Subversion, CVS and other source code control clients.
   • Checkout to your local environment any repositories that you will be working with.
   • Get all file transfer applications installed and configured, including FTP and SCP clients. These would be things like FileZilla, FireFTP, WinSCP (for Windows), etc.
   • Get any other communication tools setup, like SSH clients and Telnet clients.
   • Enter any stored connection details into these apps if you want to store them. It is important to copy these from the old machine in much the same way as you would copy the database server connection details.
5. Editors and IDEs:
   • This will range for each individual developer. The most important thing to remember here is to install the editors and IDEs that are most important to you.
   • If your editors or IDEs support projects, setup any necessary projects.
6. Graphics applications:
   • Install any graphics manipulation programs that you use. These would include Photoshop (or the CS package), Gimp, etc.
   • Install any video editing software.
7. Miscellaneous:
   • Install any other applications that you would expect to use.
   • Install/paste/migrate/import any files that you will need onto your new machine. These could be web files, image files, personal files... whatever.
   • Install any anti-virus applications that you will need.
   • Configure your machine to your liking. Yes, I did wait to the end for this. I did this because quite honestly how your machine feels to you is completely irrelevant to getting your environment into a usable state. I know this is debatable, but these are my instructions.

I hope these steps help you in some way. I am constantly remembering things in the two recent migrations I have done, so I may edit this list at some point in the future.

I do think it is a rather comprehensive list of things to consider when migrating computers. If I am missing something, please be sure to let me know.