How upgrade a very old Discourse site?

Installation
6

Hi @Paul-Reed and @codinghorror,

@pfaffman got me back up and running…did an amazing job! The site is all shiny and new, and Discourse is amazing since everything needed was in the backups!

What an amazing bit of tech from Discourse!

@pfaffman updated me with the following:

  1. A 2-container install described here.
  2. Restoring from the backup on a fresh install seemed to be the path of least resistance for a very old installation.
  3. There’s really only one file that is useful outside of the backups, which is the /var/discourse/containers/app.yml file. And I should have daily backups, not every 7 days!

A key lesson that I knew and should have remembered:

Just because you think something will take 10 min, it sometimes doesn’t. I got into this update just because I wanted to make sure that I gave @Paul-Reed some good advice on the header. Ooops! And I didn’t just learn this, but we often forget. My specialty is making sites using React and Ruby on Rails work better via my consultancy https://www.shakacode.com and my open source https://github.com/shakacode/react_on_rails.

Docker type dev ops is something I can do, but it takes a lot of time away from what I’m trying to accomplish!

So because of all that, I’m thinking about having @pfaffman help me with some update to my home page for https://forum.shakacode.com/.

So a HUGE thanks to @codinghorror and @pfaffman for all the help!

And if you’re interested, here’s the fix for the custom header that instigated this update of my old discourse site.

Custom Header

First of all, rather than yak shaving this, I’d recommend contacting @pfaffman at https://support.literatecomputing.com/. In fact, I’ll have @pfaffman help me if I want to create anything nicer in this area!

But, for you DIY’ers, I think all the useful parts are here:

2020-04-06_11-34-27
2020-04-06_11-34-27953×702 161 KB

2020-04-06_11-33-14
2020-04-06_11-33-14770×427 133 KB

AFAIK, everything else is blank.

CSS

#top-navbar-container {
    background: black;
    height: 25px;
}

#top-navbar-links .spacer {
    display: inline-block;
    margin-left: 12px;
    margin-right: 12px;
}


#top-navbar-links, #top-navbar-links a:visited, #top-navbar-links a {
    color: white;
}

header.d-header {
    background: black;
    background-image: url(/uploads/default/63/873a733a013f8208.jpg);
    padding-top: 0;
    box-shadow: none;
    top: 25px;
    height: 63px;
}

.ember-view > #main-outlet {
    padding-top: 97px;
}

header > .container {
    background-image: url(/uploads/default/63/873a733a013f8208.jpg);
    max-width: 1200px;
    padding-right: 50px;
}

header.d-header > .container > .contents {
    margin: 0;
}

header.d-header #site-logo, header.d-header .logo-small {
    max-height: 53px;
}

body #main .extra-info > a.star {
    color: #A5ACDD;
}

header .extra-info-wrapper h1 {
    margin-top: 18px;    
}

@media screen and (min-width: 1140px)  {
    header .extra-info-wrapper {
        max-width: 780px;
    }
}

@media screen and (min-width: 967px) and (max-width: 1139px)  {
    header .extra-info-wrapper {
        max-width: 647px;
    }
}

#user-notifications, #search-button, #site-map  {
    color: #AAA; 
}

@media screen and (max-width: 966px) {
    .extra-info-wrapper {
        max-width: 620px;
    }
}

header .current-username .username > a {
    color: white;
}

header.d-header .icons .icon:hover {
    background-color: #000000;
}

HEADER

<div id="top-navbar-container" class="d-header">
<div id="top-navbar" class="wrap">
<span id="top-navbar-links" style="height:20px;">
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com">Home</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/category/surfing/doug-silva">Doug Silva</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/category/surfing">Surfing</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/category/kitesurfing">Kitesurfing</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/category/standup-paddling">SUP</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/category/windsurfing">Windsurfing</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/t/pros-instructors-equipment-travel/264">Pros</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/t/what-is-talksurf-com/265">About</a><span class="spacer"> | </span>
  <a href="http://forum.talksurf.com/faq">FAQ</a>
</span>
</div>
</div>
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