Upgrade Drupal 6.x to 6.15 (DRAFT)

For a beginner it's not that obvious where to find the documentation about how to upgrade drupal 6.x to a newer version. Well, after you downloaded the new drupal-version, look in the folder. It's right there. Look for UPGRADE.txt, open it with a text-editor, and you can read it, and print it out. You also can print it from this server.

I duplicated some text, and added comment. You can use it for your upgrade from any version of drupal 6 to the new one (6.15).

Before upgrading, I open the folder of the new drupal-release, and I delete the directory "sites". The directory is needed for new installations, not for upgrades. Your sites directory will stay intact during the installation, you won't have to upload the old directory (step 8) after installation.

(from UPGRADE.txt)

1. Backup your database and Drupal directory - especially your "sites" directory which contains your configuration file and added modules and themes, any contributed or custom modules in your "modules" directory, and your "files" directory which contains uploaded files. If other files have modifications, such as .htaccess or robots.txt, those should be backed up as well.

Making a backup of the content of your database is very easy using the Backup and Migrate-module. If you didn't install it before, do it now. When installed, do the Quick Backup. That should bring a copy of the content of your database in the download-folder of your computer. If you have a large database, use the Advanced Backup. Don't change anything, except Compression: Gzip.

Don't look to the word 'especially' in the first sentence. Make a back-up of ALL the files. Put them inside a folder somewhere on your computer. In case of emergency, you can switch back to the old website by uploading the folders and restoring the database.

(from UPGRADE.txt)

5. Disable all custom and contributed modules.

You might need to run through the list twice. Some modules depend on other modules, and they can't be switched off the first time. Note that you don't have to disable core-modules (not the required nor the optional core modules).

(from UPGRADE.txt)

6. Remove all old files and directories from the Drupal installation directory.

Remove all old directories EXCEPT the  directory "sites". (see beginning of this text). If there is a directory in the root "_mmServerScripts", leave it where it is (don't remove)

(from UPGRADE.txt)

8. Copy your backed up "files" and "sites" directories to the Drupal installation directory. If other system files such as .htaccess or robots.txt were customized, re-create the modifications in the new versions of the files using the backups taken in step #1.

So, of course no copy of "sites" here. It's still there.

After step 12 you might have to rebuild the permissions. You will read a notice about that on your site, if you need to.

Further help:

Share/Save