Category: Production Change Request

Core Upgrade – 7.21 to 7.22 procedure for Centos 6.3

Looks like it is that time again. I’ll be upgrading the Core to 7.22 today. Sand first then prod.

This is the procedure that I am using. I have used it for three previous core upgrades and have never had a problem. Note that I am running Centos 6.3 on both core and sand. I have updated it for this post as well.

  1. Back up everything
  2. Download the new core file
  3. Put site into maintenance mode
  4. Place it on the server and extract all the contents to /var/www/upgrade/drupal-7.22
  5. In the newly extracted files delete the sites directory and all its subs. This is done because the upgrade is not going to replace anything in this directory
  6. From a terminal window type:          yes | cp -r /var/www/upgrade/drupal-7.22/* /var/www/html
  7. Note that the destination folder of html is my doc root and all the drupal folders/files are located right underneath this. the yes | cp…. prefix is to let the system know to overwrite everything in the destination. since sites is the only directory that we want to keep and we have removed it from the source, this will be fine.
  8. Run update.php by navigating to http://…yourdrupalsitename/update.php
  9. Follow the instructions for this closely
  10. Navigate to reports, available updates and check the version of your core
  11. Take the site off of maintenance mode
  12. Check different things on the site to ensure a smooth upgrade has occurred.
  13. That should just about do it.

The Sand upgrade is completed. No issues. Proceeding to Prod.

Prod upgrade is complete. No issues.

Install Flag and Flag Friend Modules

I have these installed in Sand and they are fine. These will expand the features of Drupalchat, User Relationships and Invite Modules.

I am enabling all four below.

 Flag 7.x-2.0 Create customized flags that users can set on content.

Required by: Flag actions (disabled), Flag friend (disabled), Flag friend access control (disabled)
Flag actions 7.x-2.0 Execute actions on Flag events.

Requires: Flag (disabled)
Flag friend 7.x-1.0-alpha9 Flag users as friends. Implements it’s own flag and a form for sending a user a message upon flag.

Requires: Flag (disabled)
Required by: Flag friend access control (disabled)
Flag friend access control 7.x-1.0-alpha9 Allows users to specify that only their friends can view this piece of content

Requires: Flag friend (disabled), Flag (disabled)

Install Drupalchat, User Relationship and Invite Modules

I have all these in sand and they seem to be fine and the functionality that I want is available from them. so I have installed them on Prod and configured them as well. Seem to be working just fine. I now have a chat app. I created a default one way relationship called Get Support! and then added that to the Drupaltalk stuff. Also added the appropriate permissions like i mentioned yesterday. So now, new users will be added to that relationship and will be able to see me automatically in the chat feature. if i am online. that way I can provide support to the pioneering members of my site.

Install Centos Patches & Drupal Module Updates

There are nine patches available for my sandbox. Appears that they are already installed in prod since that environment is managed by Blackmesh.com. That’s fine but the environments need to be reconciled. There is also an update to the Welcome module for Drupal. Installing that in Sand, then Prod… Complete.

Sand and Prod Reconcilliation

I am going to start doing a manual audit of my Sand and Prod environments to make sure the code base is the same, installed and enabled modules are consistent and theming is relatively close. Since these environments run on completely different platforms, (Prod on hosted VM in Virginia at the awesome Blackmesh Hosting Company, Sand here in Memphis on VMWare player) I am doing a weekly audit to make sure that the environments mimic each other as closely as possible.

Audit Complete – 132 of 152 modules installed/enabled.

Sites/all/libraries the same

status report shows all systems running properly

Centos-6.3 at same levels.

Upgrade Drupal Core from 7.19 to 7.20

I’ll be upgrading my core Drupal files to the version that was released this week.

Here is the short link to the proc i use to upgrade core files. I have used it several times and it is sound.

Sand first then prod. I’ll post how it goes later today. shouldn’t take too long.

I’m also going to spend some time in Quality Assurance for Sand, Qual and Prod. Making sure that they are reasonably close in the modules (need to be the same on that) installed and the stylings that are running on prod. Housekeeping. Very important.

here is a good linux command that i always forget. to delete a non-empty linux dir type

rm -rf /dirname

from the directory right above the one that you want to remove.

The core upgrade is complete with no errors/issues. The upgrade was performed on Sand first. No issues there. Cron has run and everything is up to date. Looking good.