topic Re: 3.4.a to 3.4.b Upgrade Process in Alfresco Archive

3.4.a to 3.4.b Upgrade Process

astewart — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:23:35 GMT

Hi Guru's,I know I am being HUGELY dense here, but I am struggling with the upgrade process from 3.4.a to 3.4.d and wondered if anyone could help me with some of the instructions that are documented here; http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/General_Upgrade_Process#Target:_Version_3.4I have shutdown the cu

Re: 3.4.a to 3.4.b Upgrade Process

loftux — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:43:25 GMT

First, the advice to install a separate instance is to make sure that have the new environment correctly configured before trying to do the upgrade. So with a fresh db and alf_data, does it run as expected with your specific config and customizations.

It it does, then
1. Use your current db that you want to upgrade (that you correctly so have backed up)
2. Yes make a copy of alf_data (or move if you have a backup in another safe storage location, duplicating can take a lot of space)
Before starting, make sure all your configurations point to the correct db and alf_data.

If you do it this way, you will be safe. But you can actually just replace alfresco.war and share.war (tomcat/webapps) in your current install from the 3.4.d install, then delete alfresco and share dir in tomcat/webapps, and start tomcat. The upgrade should take place.

Re: 3.4.a to 3.4.b Upgrade Process

nadaoneal — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:06:18 GMT

Hi Andy,

I didn't do 3.4.a > 3.4.d, but rather 3.4.b > 3.4.d in one place and 3.4.c > 3.4.d in another, but here is the process I used; hopefully it will work for you.

(1) MySQL dump and make backup copy of the data directory. (Or use current data directory as the backup copy, and rsync to new location in step 7 below.)
(2) Run fancy new installer to install 3.4.d in a new directory, but do not start Alfresco.
(3) Update pdfbox and fontbox .jar files in tomcat/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/lib due to this bug
(4) In tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties ,
- check that the jdbc url is in the correct format, e.g. db.url=jdbc:mysql://server.name.urlort/dbname?useUnicode=yes&characterEncoding=UTF-8 (it was weirded by the installer for me). I say: point it to your current database, since you made a backup copy above.
- make sure that open office is enabled (assuming you want that)
- Add index.recovery.mode=FULL (this will make Alfresco rebuild your lucene indices - you can set this to "AUTO" after your start-up)
- Add smtp settings
- Of course, copy over any other custom settings you had - ftp, etc.
(5) In tomcat/conf/server.xml change any ssl/etc settings you had before
(6) Check alfresco.sh - it had the wrong path to the open office script for me (openoffice/scripts/ctl.sh but the script is actually at openoffice/scripts/openoffice_ctl.sh - weird)
(7) Either point the alf_data directory to your existing data directory (if it's NFS mounted or whatever), or rsync your old data directory over.
(8) Fire up Alfresco using the alfresco.sh script; watch tomcat/logs/catalina.out and alfresco.log .

YMMV. Please note that I'm not running Alfresco with any fancy extensions - if I were, I would recommend doing 1-8 above, looking for issues, and then shutting down, installing the extensions, and starting up again. The main place I differ from the official instructions is that I'm not bothering to do the "Start Alfresco with blank data first to make sure it works correctly" step. However, if you run into problems starting up the new version, you should certainly try that out.

Hope this helps… I think upgrading Alfresco these days is way better than it was 1-2 years ago. I remember it being a more delicate process. Now the settings are consolidated into global-properties and tomcat/conf/server.xml, and having all the required software bundled is pretty sweet too. (As long as it's the right version, har har.)

Also, if anyone thinks there's anything obviously stupid in this process, please let astewart know. I'm not a power user of Alfresco, I'm running it for another group and basically only touch it to upgrade it.

Re: 3.4.a to 3.4.b Upgrade Process

astewart — Fri, 13 May 2011 11:23:24 GMT

You Sir (nadaoneal) are a Gentleman amongst Gentlemen

Your instructions were HUGELY clear and got me upgraded successfully, many thanks!

I now seem to have only one issue, which again Google hasn't provided any definitive answer: Within CATALINA.OUT I get the following message every 2 seconds or so;

WARN: org.alfresco.wcm.client.util.impl.GuestSessionFactoryImpl - WQS unable to connect to repository: Unauthorized‍

I can sign onto Alfresco/Share with no issues, and I have checked the MySQL passwords within alfresco-global.properties and they are all correct. Any ideas?

Cheers,
Andy

Re: 3.4.a to 3.4.b Upgrade Process

dranakan — Fri, 13 May 2011 11:45:27 GMT

Hello,

Do you have changed your admin passwd ? -> http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=36710#p108028

Re: 3.4.a to 3.4.b Upgrade Process

astewart — Fri, 13 May 2011 12:50:44 GMT

OK - time to hold my hands up to being a complete muppet… had put the wrong password in during the setup. Fixed that and the issue went away; I am wearing my dunces hat and hanging my head in shame for that.

Many MANY thanks for all your help, has been most excellent