Updating Joomla

**ZYV** · 07-21-2009, 06:35 AM

If the patches don't contain DB schema changes I would simply set up a mirror subdomain & upgrade it (w/o turning it off of course). Then assuming that no files get uploaded during this period of time, I would just instantly swap the directories via shell (mv public_html public_html.bak && mv test public_html) and it's done.

If the patches do contain schema changes, it makes things more difficult, because you would need to resync DB changes which occurred after you stared messing with the mirror upgrade.

Therefore, the way to go depends on how critical is the availability of the site. If you are OK with the idea that it will be down for a few hours at night, then the easiest pathway is the one you presented earlier. If you definitively need to keep the site online as much as possible, I would test the upgrade on the mirror anyway and work out a plan to perform the master upgrade next night so that it would take no more than 10-15 minutes.

In any case I don't think that turning off the site makes any sense at all and to me it looks like a waste of time. I would just ban everybody except my range of IPs via .htaccess putting a redirect to a "Maintenance" page.

P.S. It is unclear about what kind of patches you are talking about. A patch is a diff -Naupr file between the old and the new versions of the software, right? Then why would you need to upload something by FTP?

**PAJ** · 07-21-2009, 03:42 PM

Thank you for your notes, ZYV.

I basically did what I outlined, and for the most part, it worked fine.

The only thing I forgot to do was do a backup using a Joomla component called Joomlapack. Had I done that, I would have saved a copy of the index.php file from the templates I had modified. This was overwritten by the so called patch. The mods I had made were minor so it wasn't a big deal to fix that.

For anyone else who has an interest in this thread, seems the best way to apply the Joomla patch is to upload the appropriate patch zip file using cPanel's file manager and then extract it using the file manager's "extract" function.

Applying the Virtuemart patch was actually a bit more straightforward as they provide a "check for update" function which worked just fine.

Applying the sh404sef patch was different too. Download the appropriate patch, take the site off line, remove the sh404sef component using Joomla's "Extensions - uninstall", upload the new component, install the updated component and put the site back on line.

What I'm struggling with now is the sh404sef component. I forgot how I'm supposed to update the meta description. But that's another story...

**ZYV** · 07-22-2009, 10:00 AM

OK, I see that I took it a little bit too seriousely

**PAJ** · 07-22-2009, 11:34 AM

Frankly, I don't think you took it too seriously. What I should have stated with my notes was this Joomla / Virtuemart site is small, actually just a catalog, you don't purchase products directly from it and it doesn't have a lot of items in it. At that rate, had I botched the job, the site could have been completely restored in a manner of minutes given I had a complete backup.

Had it otherwise been a large site that got a lot of traffic and was making money through a cart, I would have gone with the your way, which by the way, was quite similar to what I had read.

In the end, I find Joomla to be a bit screwy / dicey about updates.

Updating Joomla

Updating Joomla

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