Take GFI HelpDesk Offline

To prevent new data from being generated while you are upgrading, disable your helpdesk. You can create a temporary page to inform visitors.

To set up your placeholder page:

1. Create a simple .html page called index.html with a message explaining that your support site is temporarily unavailable.
2. Save your customized index.html file, and any image files it uses on your local machine.
3. Log onto your server and navigate to your GFI HelpDesk root directory.
4. Upload your index.html file + images.
5. In the same folder, find the index.php file, which is your current support site homepage.
6. Rename index.php to index_down.php. This ensures that no one can access your helpdesk while you are updating.
7. Open up a browser window and navigate to your support site. The new index.html page is now seen.

Renaming the cron Folder

It is also recommend to rename your cron folder temporarily so that if you have a manual cron job set up, it does not ping your helpdesk during the upgrade.

To change the name of your cron folder:

1. Navigate to your GFI HelpDesk root directory, and find a folder called cron.
2. Rename this folder to cron_disabled. This prevents any manual cron jobs you have set up from firing while you run your backups.

Disable Your Email Queues

Disable your email queues, so you do not miss any incoming requests while GFI HelpDesk is offline.

1. Log into the GFI HelpDesk admin control panel.
2. On the menu sidebar, click Email Parser followed by Email Queues.

For queues using POP3Post Office Protocol 3 - A protocol used by local email clients to retrieve emails from mailboxes over a TCP/IP connection. or IMAPInternet Message Access Protocol - One of the two most commonly used Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval, the other being POP3.:

1. Click the email address on the list.
2. Under 'Email Queue Settings', next to Email Queue is Enabled select 'No'.
3. Click Update.
4. Any emails sent to these email addresses now simply accumulates in the email inboxes while GFI HelpDesk is offline.

For email queues using the Pipe method:

1. Log into the mail server for the address being used to forward emails and disable mail forwarding while GFI HelpDesk is offline.
2. You can then follow the instructions above to disable the queue within GFI HelpDesk.

Back up your templates

Next, yCreate a backup of any templates you've modified in GFI HelpDesk so you can import them into your updated helpdesk.

To back up your templates:

1. Go back to the GFI HelpDesk administrative control panel.
2. On the menu sidebar, go to Templates > Import/Export.
3. Next to Export Type, make sure Export all templates is selected.
4. Click Export XML and save your backup to your ‘[GFI HelpDesk_backup]’ folder.

Back up any language support files that is modified.

To create backups of your language packs:

1. Go back to the GFI HelpDesk administrative control panel.
2. On the menu sidebar, go to Languages > Import/Export.
3. Next to Language to Export, select a language you have made modifications to, and click the Export XML button in the top menu.
4. Save the XML file to your ‘[GFI HelpDesk_backup]’ folder.
5. If you’ve modified other language packs, repeat the same procedure for each additional language.

Back up your file attachments and GeoIP folder

Next, make a copy of two folders that store important information for your helpdesk:

1. Using a file manager or the command line, log into your server and navigate to the GFI HelpDesk root directory.
2. Open the '__swift' directory, and find the 'files' and the 'geoip' directories.
3. Make a compressed archive of each of them and name them 'files_backup' and 'geoip_backup' respectively.
4. Save the archives to your ‘[GFI HelpDesk_backup]’ folder.

Make a complete database backup

You can make a complete backup of your GFI HelpDesk database, just in case something goes wrong during the upgrade process.

1. We recommend you use the command line to make your database backup, so pull up a terminal window and log into your server.
2. Run the following command, filling in your details for each [placeholder], to save a local backup of your GFI HelpDesk database:
• On Windows Environments:
  mysqldump --databases [your database name] --user=root --password=[your password] > [filepath for your [GFI HelpDesk_backup] directory] \dump.sql
  NOTE:

  If you try to run this command and it tells you the program cannot be found, you’ll need to navigate to the directory where the MySQL dump tool has been installed and run it again, usually ‘C:\”Program Files"\MySQL\"MySQL Server 5.5"\bin\mysqldump’.

• On Linux Environments:
  mysqldump -u [your username] -p[your password] [your database name] > [filepath for your [GFI HelpDesk_backup] directory] /dump.sql
  NOTE:

  If you try to run this command and it tells you the program cannot be found, you’ll need to navigate to the directory where the MySQL dump tool has been installed and run it again. You can get there by typing ‘which mysqldump’ and then navigating to the path the command returns.

3. Go to the target directory you specified, and check to make sure the dump.sql file has been created successfully.

For information on downgrading, see Downgrading from Fusion to Case.

Your next task is to get the new product files up and configured on your web server, and then run the upgrade script.

Downloading, unpacking, and uploading the product files

Your next step is to download the product files, extract them on your local machine, and upload them from there to your server:

1. Log into my.GFI HelpDesk.com and click on the arrow under 'My Orders' to see your product details:
2. Here you can see all of the details of your license including a link to the product files:
3. Click the link to the product and save the file to your machine.
4. Extract the package locally.
5. The extracted folder contains a sub-folder named 'upload', which contains all your helpdesk files.
6. Using either the command line or an FTP client of your choice, upload all of the files from the 'upload' folder into the folder on your web server that you use to store your helpdesk.
NOTE:

If you are using an FTP client, make sure upload is done using binary mode.

Uploading your file attachments and GeoIP directories

The product files you uploaded come with empty directories for your 'files' and 'geoip' folders. Add your backed up data to those folders.

1. Upload the archives of the 'files' and 'geoip' directories from your '[GFI HelpDesk_backup]' folder into the '__swift' directory on your server.
2. Extract the archives.
3. Copy the contents of 'files_backup' into 'files' and 'geoip_backup' into 'geoip'.
4. Delete the archives and the empty '_backup' folders from your server.

Reconfiguring your helpdesk files

There are a few configuration steps for your product files before you run the upgrade script.

Rename 'config.php.new'

To avoid accidental overwriting of any existing 'config.php' files, the '__swift/config/' directory comes default with a files called 'config.php.new'. Provided you do not have any conflicting 'config.php' files, you must rename this file to 'config.php' before continuing.

Edit 'config.php'

The 'config.php' file must be manually edited to match the configuration of your helpdesk's database connection.

The following variables in this file need to be edited:

• $_DB["hostname"] – Needs to be set to the hostname of your GFI HelpDesk database.
• $_DB["username"] – Needs to be set to the username of your GFI HelpDesk database admin user.
• $_DB["password"] – Needs to be set to your database user's password.
• $_DB["name"] - Needs to be set to the name of your GFI HelpDesk database.

Here's an example of what the database details in your 'config.php' file should look like:

After editing config.php, save it.

Upload 'key.php'

In order to activate the product, download the key.php file corresponding to your registered domain from https://accounts.gfi.com/ and upload it to the root folder in which the rest of the helpdesk files have been uploaded.

Set file permissions

GFI HelpDesk needs write permissions, recursively, for five directories:

• __swift/*.*
• __swift/cache
• __swift/geoip
• __swift/logs
• __apps

Please choose the section below that corresponds to your operating system if you are unfamiliar with changing permissions on directories.

Unix-based servers:

On a Unix-based system, use the 'chmod' command to set permissions to '777' on the aforementioned directories:

1. Run the command from within the __swift directory: chmod -Rf 777 files cache geoip logs
2. Run the command from within the GFI HelpDesk root directory: chmod -Rf 777 __apps

Windows-based servers:

You have to make two adjustments if you are running GFI HelpDesk on a Windows-based server:

1. First, in the 'php.ini' file, set the upload_tmp_dir to 'C:\Windows\TEMP'.
2. Open up your 'php.ini' file, search for upload_tmp_dir and make sure it looks like this:
; Temporary directory for HTTPHypertext Transfer Protocol - A protocol for exchange of hypertext documents in HTML. uploaded files (default is used if not specified).

upload_tmp_dir = C:\Windows\TEMP

3. Second, set some specific folder permissions for Microsoft's IIS. For the user account of the application pool being used for GFI HelpDesk, grant full permissions to the following folders:

• files
• cache
• geoip
• logs
• __apps
• C:\Windows\TEMP

Running the upgrade script

Whether you are upgrading your existing instance or downgrading from Fusion, run GFI HelpDesk's upgrade script to make sure you are using the latest version of the product.

To run the upgrade script:

1. Open up your browser and go to your GFI HelpDesk checklist.php. For example https://www.yourdomain.com/support/checklist.php.
2. Ensure that there are no errors / warnings prior to proceeding with the installation (by clicking Install GFI HelpDesk).
3. Review the license terms, and click Agree.
4. The setup utility checks to make sure your server meets all the requirements.
5. When it is done, click Next to start the upgrade.
   NOTE:

   The automated portion of the setup script may take quite some time. Do not interrupt it for any reason else your installation can be corrupted and you have to start over.

Once the upgrade is complete, a success screen is displayed, and you are ready to start reactivating your helpdesk.

Re-enabling your email queues

The first thing to do, once the upgrade process is complete, is to capture any emails that came in while your helpdesk was unavailable. From there, you can re-enable all your queues so everything starts flowing again.

To re-enable your email queues:

1. Collect any emails from while you were away. Log in to the Admin Control Panel.
2. On the menu sidebar, click Email Parser followed by Email Queues.
3. Make a list of the queues you have set up to use the Pipe method.
   NOTE:

   You are going to use POP3 to go collect any missed emails, but then you can set your queues back to using the Pipe method if you prefer.

4. For all of your queues, regardless of mailbox type:
1. Click the email address on the list.
2. Next to Mailbox Type select POP3.
3. Next to Email Queue is Enabled select Yes.
4. Click the Update button.
5. Repeat the steps above for all of your queues.
5. Next, we’re going to schedule a custom task to force GFI HelpDesk to fetch your emails:
1. Over on the menu sidebar, click Scheduled Tasks followed by Manage.
2. Scroll down and find Fetch emails (POP3/IMAP) on the list and click the checkbox.
3. At the top of the page, click the Execute button to run the task.
6. Now that you have pulled in any messages you missed, you can reset your Pipe queues:
1. Log into the mail server of the address you are using to forward emails and re-enable mail forwarding to your support address.
2. Come back to the admin control panel and select the address from the list.
3. Next to Mailbox Type select Pipe.
4. Click the Update button.
5. Repeat the steps above for any other Pipe queues.

Restoring your templates

Your next step is to restore any templates that you'd modified prior to the update.

Restoring your template modifications from your backups takes a few steps. Follow the instructions in the article: Managing Your Template Modifications to reimplement your template modifications.

Importing your language packs

If you created backups for your modified language packs, they’re next on the import list.

To import your customized language packs:

1. Still in the admin control panel, from the menu sidebar, click Languages followed by Import/Export.
2. Select Import at the top of the page.
3. Next to Template Group XML File, click the Choose File button.
4. Navigate to your [GFI HelpDesk_backup] folder, select the language backup you created, and click the Open button.
5. Click the Import button at the top of the page to finish the import.
6. If you’ve modified other language packs, repeat the same procedure for each additional language.

Remove your placeholder page and 'cron_disabled' directory

Now that everything's up and running again in the background, it's time to take down the placeholder page you put up to divert people away from your Support Center. You can also remove the 'cron_disabled' folder, as a new 'cron' folder is created when uploading the product files.

To take down the placeholder page:

1. Go to your GFI HelpDesk root directory.
2. Delete the 'index.html' page you put up at the beginning of this process.
3. Rename 'index_down.php' back to 'index.php'.
4. Delete the 'cron_disabled' folder.
5. Visit your support URLUniform Resource Locator is the address of a web page on the world wide web. – you should see your GFI HelpDesk Support Center.

Last step! Rebuild support desk cache

Rebuild your cache to make sure your desk is not hanging onto any outdated data that could interfere with things. There are two steps for this:

1. On your web server, go to the __swift/cache/ directory and delete everything.
   NOTE:

   These are temp files and are replaced as soon as you complete step 2, below.

2. In the GFI HelpDesk admin control panel, click Diagnostics and then Rebuild Cache in the sidebar.