Updating moodle while keeping passwords and DB connections

I upgraded one of my moodle instances from 2.3 to 2.4 recently.

http://james-moodle.blogspot.com/2013/01/upgrading-moodle-23-to-24.html

But, I omitted a key step from the moodle docs, which in hindsight, I regret. That step was using or keeping the config.php file.  By allowing the upgrade to re-create the config.php file, I lost my passwords for all my user accounts.  A new password salt is added to the config.php file, rendering the existing passwords useless.

I want to keep the passwords and reduce the intrusion for my users on the site.

When I upgrade 4 other sites on Thursday, I will be sure to copy the config.php file into the webroot of my 2.4 code PRIOR TO browsing to the site and starting the upgrade process. The affect of this is the continued use of the existing DB connection parameters and the existing password salt.

Moral of the story?

When upgrading, you PROBABLY want to keep the passwords and DB connection info in place for your site, so COPY the config.php file from the current old instance to the webroot of the new updated code directory THEN browse the site URL and allow the upgrade to do its work.

Read the

Install the new Moodle software 

section on the moodle 2.4 upgrading page