Drupal 6 to 8 Rebuild?

By wrb123 on 2 Oct 2015 at 02:18 UTC

Hello. I have an old Drupal 6 site that I have neglected for some time. Of course I have some upgrade warnings for core and for modules. However, I thought it would be good to re-examine the architecture of the site and start fresh with Drupal 8. The site isn't too complicated at its core, but the problem is I've forgotten which installed modules are essential, and even the basics of the site setup. I'm sure I can familiarize myself with the setup, which is basically a hierarchical arrangement of content types with voting at the lowest level. But, my question is how should I go about "rebuilding" the site?

Some modules being used: Adsense, Content Permissions, Content Taxonomy, Content Taxonomy Autocomplete, Content Taxonomy Options, Field Groups, Nodereference, Nodereferrer, Nodereferrer Create, Number, Options Widgets, Text, User Reference, Blocks, Modr8, Nodecomment, noderefcreate, Unique Field, Radioactivity, Read More Tweak, Views, Views Custom Field, Voting API, Fivestar.

1. Does it make sense to install Drupal 8 to a fresh site/server, attempt to re-install the appropriate modules one at a time, attempt to recreate the same basic skeletal structure and functionality, and then eventually figure out a way to import my database tables?

2. Might any of the modules I'm using (listed above) pose problems in the current Drupal environment, or should they be replaced with core functionality?

3. Anything special I should know before undertaking what is to me a pretty big project?

4. Are there any existing guides/tutorials regarding rebuild of Drupal sites from 6 -> 7, 6 -> 8, or 7 -> 8 and then importing database tables?

4. What has changed from Drupal 6 to 8 that I should be aware of before beginning?

Thanks so much for any help that can be provided.

Comments

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VM commented 2 October 2015 at 02:35

1. yes. you'll also need to investigate the modules in use to insure that they've been upgraded to whatever version you decide to install. D8 won't have nearly the selection D7 does at this point. You may find that one or more of the modules don't have upgrades and will need to be replaced with successor modules or left out entirely.

2. see 1

3. Don't leave your site to rot once you get it where you want it. It's possible your current site depending on how long its been rotting was impacted by drupalgeddon security exploit at which point I wouldn't keep any part of it.

4. no. you never import database tables from one major version to another. That's a recipe for disaster.

4. D6 to D8 is night and day. Most every thing has changed including the underlying architecture. Far too much to list. Make sure to check system requirements for running D8 before attempting to install.

I appreciate the reply! The

wrb123 commented 2 October 2015 at 02:50

I appreciate the reply! The active and helpful Drupal community is one of the reasons I was attracted to this platform to begin with. Good to see people are still here to help.

Regarding your comment about the database tables, maybe I'm describing it incorrectly. How would I go about retaining all the tons of content that I generated in the Drupal 6 site after it's created in D8? Maybe my terminology is wrong - there has to be a way to import the actual nodes and content after I re-create the content types and tables and such?

Thanks again.

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VM commented 2 October 2015 at 03:20

D8 includes a migrate module. In D7 it's in contrib. However success depends entirely on how your site was built, what modules were in use (ie: CCK other fields modules and so on.).

At your skill level and based on the admitted state of your current site, I'd spend the time to rebuild from scratch and copy and paste the content over.