IASK: Legacy

Upgrading to Sql Server Express 2005 on Plesk for Windows

โ€”

by

senseiken
in

Ok, that was interesting.

I maintain several Plesk servers for clients, some Windows and some Linux. Under the current version (7.5.4 for Windows) there is a need to support the Asp.NET 2.0 framework and the tools that come with it. After much research and holding of breath, I took the leap and did an upgrade.

I take no responsibility for this information if it screws up your server. That’s your own problem. Get it? Use this information at your own risk!

Here are the steps I took:

  • Backed up all my data
  • Installed the ASP.NET 2.0 framework runtime
  • Grabbed the “sa” password for the installed MSDE system (I copied the steps to do that to below the fold, but they are also on the Plesk support forum)
  • Downloaded the Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition
  • Created a machine account to use to run SQL Server… you can call it anything you want, it need no special access and a regular user account is fine (remember the username and password)
  • Installed SQL Server Express as an upgrade (when it asks for what user account to run under, pick “domain account” and give it your user info from the previous step, you can leave the domain field empty)
  • Installed Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express
  • Used Studio Express to verify that my MSDE upgrade went fine (it did)
  • Checked via Plesk to be sure everything was fine (it was)
  • Opened (carefully!) the ports needed to connect remotely – good information here, here and here

Basically, the upgrade was painless and did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Big shout out to “shortcut” on the Plesk forums!  (see thread)

The latest versions of plesk for windows, 7.5.x have relocated the psa database to a mysql server running on port 8306 instead of standard port 3306 mixed up with all the client databases.

This information is in the 8306 database, AS WELL AS the ‘admin’ password for the standard client database running on port 3306.

cd %plesk_dir%/mysql/bin
mysql -u admin -p “<Plesk_admin_pwd> ” –port=8306 psa

Should get you to the mysql prompt for the psa admin database.

From then on the queries:

select * from misc where param like “%mssql%”;

and

select * from misc where param like “%mysql%”;