Moving to MySQL

This page describes how to move your existing SQLite database to MySQL. SQLite is the normal desktop database file that Pedigree Publisher uses and has a .db file extension. MySQL is a database server that normally resides in the cloud and is commonly provided with most websites.

The reasons you might want to move your database to MySQL are as follows:

• You would be able to access your database from anywhere with an internet connection.
• You can give access to other people - useful for groups like breed clubs, registries and researchers. Using database permissions, users can have either full priviliges to read and modify data or just read data.
• You can install software like Pedigree Point on your website to allow visitors to your website to search for entries and view pedigrees, reverse pedigrees, sibling etc reports. Changes you make in Pedigree Cloud will immediately appear in Pedigree Point - there is no need to publish.
• Pedigree Point can be configured to allow open access or require a login. Pedigree Cloud makes it easy to manage accounts by creating, deleting or modifying them.

Step 1

Start Pedigree Cloud and use the FILE-Manage Connections... menu command. A dialog appears as below.

Click the "Add MySQL" button and the dialog below appears.

Fill in the fields and click OK, then Pedigree Cloud will connect to your MySQL database. Just some notes:

• Usually the database is located on the same computer as your website so you can usually enter the URL of your website but without the http(s)://, so for example use "mybreedsite.org" NOT "https://mybreedsite.org".
• The username, password and database are obtained when you create the database usually through the website's cPanel and phpMyAdmin.
• The Photo path is the folder where you keep local copies of your photos. Note if you add photos to that folder you will need to separately copy them to your website, typically using your cPanel File Manager or an FTP program.
• The MySQL server usually has extra security via its remote access list. To connect directly to MySQL you should have a static IP address. This address then needs to be added to the remote access list via the cPanel phpMyAdmin etc.
• If you do not have a static IP address then you can install the "Connector" which is simply a PHP file called "pp_connector.php". This comes with the Pedigree Point software package.

Step 2

Now that your are connected to your MySql database, if it was just created then Pedigree Cloud adds some management tables but generally you will see nothing because no data has been loaded yet.

The final step is to transfer your existing SQLite .db database file to MySQL. This is done using a single menu command: "TOOLS-Import Database...". A file open dialog appears, select your .db file and click OK. Pedigree Cloud will warn you about any existing tables in MySQL which will be replaced. Click OK and it will proceed to create copies of all the tables in your .db file and then upload the data into them. If the database is large, this may take some time.

After the data has been transferred, you should see your original data but this time coming from MySQL. Note that when you exit, Pedigree Cloud saves the connection data and will automatically open this MySQL database every time you start it.