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Upgrading to a Newer Version of Drupal

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Last Updated: April 28, 2015 11:43 AM

How you upgrade Drupal depends on how you installed it:

Upgrading Manual Drupal Installations to a Newer Version

These instructions only applies to Web & Classic Hosting. For more information, see What type of hosting account do I have?

Upgrading Drupal® to a newer version can involve many steps. There are some great resources available on Drupal's site, but we want to point out some additional things to help you when working with our specific hosting environment.

NOTE: This article helps you with backing up your current site and database and creating a test site. For detailed instructions regarding additional upgrade steps, we recommend Drupal's site and the upgrade.txt file included with the new version to which you're upgrading.

To Back Up and Download Your Current Site and Database

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Web Hosting.
  3. Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Manage.
  4. From the Tools section, click FTP File Manager.
  5. Browse to the folder that contains your Drupal files.
  6. In the Page Size field, select 50.
  7. Click the checkmark to the left of the Filename column to select all the files.
  8. Click Archive from the Action bar. Name the file and follow any prompts.
  9. Click the checkbox in front of the archived file and click Download from the Action bar.
  10. Go to the Databases tab and select MySQL.
  11. From your list of databases, click Actions next to the database you want to use, and then Back Up.
  12. Clcik OK.

It will take up to 15 minutes to back up the database. You can use an FTP client to download it from the db_backups folder.

Creating a Test Site

This step is optional, however, Drupal recommends creating a test site to verify that your upgrade has not created any issues with your site.

Our Hosting Control Panel makes this task easier for you. After you run update.php and your database structure is updated, and you have re-loaded any custom modules, you can proceed with copying your site to another folder on your hosting account to thoroughly test it.

To Back Up Your Database and Create a Database for Your Test Site

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Web Hosting.
  3. Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Manage.
  4. Go to the Databases tab and select MySQL.
  5. Click Create Database. Write down the user name and password you use and make sure to select 5.0 as the MySQL version.
  6. Click OK
  7. Click the pencil button next to the database associated with your Drupal installation.
  8. From the Action bar, select Backup. Make sure you do not overwrite the backup you created earlier. If necessary, download the existing backup before creating a new one. The existing backup contains the information from your previous installation and you may need it if you need to revert the installation.
  9. Wait while the new database is created and the existing Drupal database is backed up. It should not take longer than 30 minutes.

To Copy Your Site to a Subfolder in Your Hosting Account

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Web Hosting.
  3. Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Manage.
  4. From the Tools section, click FTP File Manager.
  5. Click Create New Directory. This is the directory you will copy your existing Drupal site files to.
  6. Browse to the folder that contains your Drupal files.
  7. In the Page Size field, select 50.
  8. Click the checkmark to the left of the Filename column to select all the files. If there are more than 50 files in this directory, perform the operation multiple times.
  9. From the Action bar, click Copy.
  10. From the directory tree, click the directory you just created.
  11. Click OK.

To Copy Your Existing Drupal Database to the New Database and Modify the settings.php File

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Web Hosting.
  3. Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Manage.
  4. Go to the Databases tab and select MySQL.
  5. Click the pencil button next to the new database you created.
  6. Copy the contents of the Host Name field. You will need this information when you modify the settings.php file to point to your backup database.
  7. Click Restore.
  8. Select your Drupal database backup and click Restore.
  9. Go to the Tools tab and select FTP File Manager.
  10. Go to your back up site folder and navigate to sites\default. The default folder contains settings.php.
  11. Click the checkbox in front of settings.php and click Permissions.
  12. Go to the Advanced Permissions tab and make sure Write is selected in the Owner permissions area. Click OK.
  13. Re-select the checkbox in front of settings.php and click Edit.
  14. Find the following line in the file:
    "$db_url = 'mysql://user:pass@server/databasename';"
    and replace with the user name and password you created for your backup database. Where it displays server, replace with the host name you copied when you were restoring your database. The user name is the same as the database name.
  15. Scroll down in the file and locate $base_url = ' ';". Between the ' ', place your URL, including the subfolder you created. For example, 'http://www.coolexample.com/mysubfolder'.
  16. Browse to your site and go to the subfolder you created and test your site.

If you are unable to produce any issues with your site, you can use the instructions provided by Drupal to return your upgraded site to online mode.

As a courtesy, we provide information about how to use certain third-party products, but we do not endorse or directly support third-party products and we are not responsible for the functions or reliability of such products. Drupal® is a registered third-party trademark. All rights reserved.