Would something like Git be useful here? You can maintain a core application and multiple customised client versions. You can then mod the core application and pull & merge the changes into each client app as needed. <br>
<br>BTW, hi Tim!<br><br>Charlie<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 18:32, Tim Williams <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:T.M.Williams@cs.bham.ac.uk">T.M.Williams@cs.bham.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
<br>
I manage multiple installations of Moodle for a variety of clients and<br>
uses (not all of them eLearning). Some of the Moodles have modifications<br>
to core code, some have additional plugins compared to the standard<br>
base. My current approach is similar to yours, I keep a note of whihc<br>
Moodle version any given installation was based on, whether or not the<br>
core code was patched and if there are any non-standard plugins. I also<br>
keep a copy of all the Moodle installation files which i've used.<br>
<br>
When I need to upgrade a server, i'll find the original unmodified<br>
installation file for that Moodle and use 'diff -bur' to compare it to the<br>
actual modidied installation. I can then use patch to apply the full set<br>
of modifications to the new Moodle version. diff will also list all<br>
of the files which are missing in the new version compared to the old one,<br>
so I know what extras need to be copied accross. For a minor point release<br>
upgrade, I can often have the server back up in 10 minutes or so for a<br>
single site. For a major release the patches will sometimes need to be<br>
manually re-written if diff can't cope with them.<br>
<br>
You can use tools to speed the process up, I know of a Moodle admin who<br>
had used a set of scripts to automate the process of downloading the<br>
latest Moodle and patching in the necessary modifications 3rd party<br>
extras. However, you still need to 'keep an eye' on the process because<br>
it might fail and require manual intervention, so the each site still<br>
need to be done 'one at a time'.<br>
<br>
Tim W<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Tim Williams BSc MSc MBCS - Euromotor Autotrain<br>
Web : <a href="http://www.autotrain.org" target="_blank">http://www.autotrain.org</a><br>
Tel : +44 (0)121 414 2214 (ext 42214 on internal phone)<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
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