db4free.net‘s server has reached its limits, and it was time for a new one. Now here it is, a shiny new server, with 8 times as much memory than the previous one, and also more disk space. Time for a reboot.

Only recently, MySQL 5.6 has become GA with much better performance than 5.5 and earlier, so the combination of a faster MySQL server and a faster machine should result in a very significant performance boost for db4free.net.

I have not migrated any user databases, but they are still available on the previous/old server. The old server is available at db4free.org, the new server at db4free.net. I will leave the old server running until end of March to allow users to transfer their data to the new server. After that, the server will be shut down and db4free.org will point to the new server as well. This way the server will not have to carry the load of thousands of databases and user accounts which have been created over time and are no longer used.

This means that all users have to register a new account. And here are instructions how to migrate your database from the old to the new server:

On Linux, make sure you have the mysql-client package installed. This should give you everything you need. For Windows users I am providing the 2 client programs you need for download: mysql.exe and mysqldump.exe. Download and copy them into your Windows directory (C:\WINDOWS usually).

To create a backup (dump file) of your database from the old server, run:

mysqldump -h db4free.org -u [myuser] -p[mypass] --database [mydatabase] --opt > dump.sql

[myuser] is of course your user name, [mypass] your password (note that there is no space between -p and your password) and [mydatabase] your database name, as used on the old server.

To import this backup into the new server (after you created the account) run:

mysql -h db4free.net -u [myuser] -p[mypass] [mydatabase] < dump.sql

Note that while mysqldump used db4free.org as host name, you need db4free.net for the mysql command. User name, password and database are those from the new server, in case you used different ones when registering for an account on the new server.

If you prefer phpMyAdmin, you can still access the old server at http://www.db4free.org/phpMyAdmin/.

Should be easy enough, I hope. And when it’s all done: enjoy!