Is it possible to have OJS3 and OJS2 installed in the same server directory?

Software Support
1

Hello, I wanted to know if it is possible to have OJS3 in the same directory as a previous instance in OJS2. The reason for keeping OJS2 is to use it as a legacy web archive and keep the SEO related, not to be used regularly.

Thank you very much.

2

I’m new to OJS, but have quite a bit of experience on other platforms, I think you will need to create a separate subdirectory since you want both to be accessible. You don’t mention what your current directory structure is, but if you currently have something like www/ojs2, you can make a new directory www/ojs3 for the new installation.

If you plan to keep your old data from OJS2 in your OJS3 installation and continue adding to it, then you will need to create a copy of the old database for use with OJS3. I’m pretty sure that these two versions will not work accessing the same database .

Someone with more experience with OJS, please confirm what I have said!

3

Thank you!

My structure is www/ojs2 and www/ojs3

OJS3 is a new installation with a new associated database. I was interested in moving the content of OJS3 to the OJS2 directory to maintain accessibility to old articles and SEO.

If I point my domain .com to www/ojs3, the access to the articles on www/ojs2 is lost.

Any other suggestions?

4

You can move data folder too and make upgraded version of old OJS installation. As far as I know you can’t directly connect to old/OJS 2 pdf files since they do have a lot of database inter-related entries and it is not just one link.

5

Not only is the database incompatible across versions 2 and 3, but also the files_dir. You can have both versions installed on the same server, but you will need two copies of everything: source code, private files, and database.

6

You could put a link using the “Additional Content” function in Settings/Website/Appearance like:

<h2><a href="…/ojs2/index.php">Visit our old site here!</a></h2>

This would then show up on your top page.

7

Hi @Ayax,

Why not use the upgrade tools to migrate your OJS2 content into OJS3, then taķe OJS2 offline in favour of OJS3? Your article URLs from OJS2 etc. should be preserved.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

8

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. :+1:

@asmecher Hi, I thought that doing that would alter the URLs affecting SEO. I’ll try to see if I’m lucky.

9

Hi @Ayax,

All the important URLs – the homepage, article pages, issue pages, etc. – will stay the same when you upgrade from OJS 2.x to 3.x. Make sure you take a good backup of everything before you upgrade, and I’d suggest making a test upgrade in a temporary location to review the changes before you go live.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team