# Welcome to the IPB Upgrade Center This document will provide you with the information required to upgrade your IPB 1 series board to the IPb 2.0.0 series board. The upgrade process physically updates your current series 1 database and for that reason, we strongly recommend that you back up your SQL database and files before attempting this upgrade. Also note that existing skins are not immediately IPB 2.0.0 compatible. They are roughly converted into the IPB 2.0.0 format but they will require manual upgrading. The conversion process puts them as children of the "Pre IPB 2.0.0" skin set for your review. Remember: There is no downgrade path! ## Backing up your database We recommend that you back up your database by using the mysqldump command line tool:
    mysqldump --opt -uusername -p databasename > databasename.sql
(Substituting username for your MySQL username and databasename for your MySQL database name) Once the backup is complete (and it may take quite a while for larger boards) you should then download your IPB PHP files to complete the back-up process. ## Deleting the old files Once the backup process is complete, you can safetly delete all the IPB 1 series files EXCEPT conf_global.php. You can keep the directory style_images and its contents if desired and we recommend keeping html/emoticons to prevent your old posts from showing broken images inplace of emoticons. If you wish to remove this directory, you can rebuild all your post caches once the upgrade has completed. ## Uploading the new files Upload the contents of the unarchived IPB 2.0.0 zip file (all the files in the 'upload' folder EXCEPT conf_global.php. If you do overwrite this file by mistake, you will have to edit it manually to put back in your database details. Make sure you upload all the files, including the folders and contents: install, upgrade and ipb_templates.xml. ## Using the upgrade tool Once you've uploaded all the files, point your browser at: http://domain.com/forum/upgrade/upgrade.php. (Substituting domain.com/forum/ for your real location to your board. The upgrade tool will figure out which version you are currently running. Take a moment to make sure its correct and read the safety notice before proceeding. The upgrade tool will then automatically run through all the required steps. This may take a while on some of the steps - please be patient. Once the upgrade tool has completed the process, you can log into the board and the administrators control panel to check that the upgrade process has been successful. That's it - you should now be running the latest IPB 2.0.0 version!