We have been happily using OTRS 1.3.1 since 2005 and it has been working flawlessly ever since (I know v1.3.1 is very old but it just works!) . A feature we use is FreeText fields which we fill using a sql statement in a Perl script which is run when a ticket is automatically moved to a certain queue. With OTRS 1.3.1 we can have up 8 FreeText fields and when you zoom in on a ticket all these are displayed on the right of the window. However, when you click on the 'Free Text' option only 4 FreeText fields are presented for editing! I am sure this has been fixed in a later version of OTRS but is it something easily fixed in the present version by editing a file/files? This brings me to thinking about upgrading as our system is old but we only have our working system and we have no backup system that I test a upgrade on. Also, I have inherited the system so I do not know much about it. Question:

From reading the various documents it seems that the process of upgrading OTRS must be done in steps. Am I correct in that I cannot go from version 1.3.1 straight to the present version but must do it in steps. If I am correct what steps must be taken to get up to the current version of OTRS?

Question: Reading the UPGRADING file that came with version 1.3.1, and is present in every subsequent release, one of its points says "Backup everything (database, Kernel/Config.pm, Kernel/Config/GenericAgent.pm, var/*)". I can backup the files and directories mentioned but is there any documentation of how to backup the MySQL database as I have little experience with it? Thanks Paul