Sent: January 17, 2004 12:14 AM
To: encore List
Subject: [encore] Re: Moving to 4.0

Follow Up Flag: For Your Information
Flag Status: Flagged

Hi Mark and others,

One way to do MOO patching

==========================
This may not be "best practice" but it works well for patching our encore 
MOOs. I keep this info handy for the next patch job. Being a busy academic IT 
research group downunder, we have to do all our own IT support, so notes like 
this are useful to pass on to others.

We announce a "stall" on building and programming on the MOO while the 
patching is done. That way, MOO meetings continue as usual and disruption is 
minimal. We then copy and mirror the current MOO db onto a separate 
development host where the patching is done. Handy to have mirror as backup.

(the main MOO is the production site on ispg.csu.edu.au and the MOO database 
that is patched runs on the development site at infstud.riv.csu.edu.au)

Both of our host machines run on FreeBSD UNIX and my desktop computer I used 
for patching is an IBM Pentium 4 running Windows XP. The tools I use for 
patching are:

·         Microsoft WordPad (not notepad or MS Word) to open all the patch 
files and 

·         the latest version of Pueblo UE 2.6b. – see 
http://pueblo.sourceforge.net/ 


The big screen and enhanced client features of Pueblo UE 2.6b are useful to 
check that each verb and property has been copied correctly, although MOOTcan 
and others are fine.

(NOTE: The UE stands for Ultra Enterprises – the company who has taken over 
development of Pueblo after Chaco Communications dropped development and gave 
away the source code. So now Pueblo is an open source MOO client).


After setting up the mirror sites and reading the notes by Jan and Cynthia, 
then download the patch files to the desktop PC from 
http://lingua.utdallas.edu/encore/download.html is done. Patching is then 
simply done by:

1. Open the patch file in Word Pad and COPY from the beginning, a chunk of 
text at a time, ending the “chunk” with line a period “.” character to 
signify the end of a verb or a blank line to signify the end of a section.


2. Connect to the MOO via Pueblo and PASTE the chunk of text into the Pueblo 
text window where all text and commands are entered.


3. Compile each verb or property by simply hitting the “enter” key.


4. Reading the text in the window to see that all has been programmed OK the 
first couple of times is good so that you get familiar with the “action” of 
compiling a patch file into the db.


5. Toggle back to the patch file and repeat until the end of the file


6. Open next patch file if you have more to do and repeat from step 1.


7. Copy any files needed to the encore directory (eg new MOOtcan, images etc)


8. Test the MOO, shut it down and also the main MOO, copy the db file over to 
the main production site.


9. Restart your newly patched MOO


I have successfully fixed K9MOO from 2.0.5 and done 15 patches up to version 
4.0 on infstud, ready for transfer to the main site on ispg. That will teach 
me to be a lazy patcher! It took me longer to “bite the bullet” as Mark 
suggests.


The 15 patch file sizes reflect the versioning, where the biggest patches 
(about half a megabyte each in size) were going from version 2.1.1 to version 
3.0 and finally going from 3.3.4 to version 4.0.


Some of the extra files (images etc) for the 3.2 and 4.0 patches plus a later 
version of MOOtcan have to be copied to the encore directory where the MOO is 
configured, in order to complete both of those patch installations.


The 15 patches files are about 2 megabytes in total length from took about 2 
hours on K9MOO… boring and repetitive, but done and the results can be seen 
at http://infstud.riv.csu.edu.au:9000 


I hope those notes based on my experiences are useful. It works for me.


Regards,

Ken Eustace


Lecturer (Information Systems)

Study Group Program Manager (IT)

School of Information Studies
Charles Sturt University

Wagga Wagga NSW 2678