Upgrading Alfresco CE versions

[espressobeanies]

I'm trying to upgrade my Alfresco CE version from 4.2.0 to 5.2.2, however from reading online documentation I see that 'in-place upgrades' of Alfresco's binary and configuration files are not recommended. What is the best way to upgrade an existing Alfresco installation if creating a new installation is not an option?

[afaust]

There is no Alfresco CE version 5.2.2 - that would be an Enterprise Edition version. It is true, that in-place upgrades are not recommended / supported when your system has been / is being setup using the default Alfresco installer. I never use it and almost always do in-place upgrades, because I have full control over every component, and can back them up, upgrade them or roll them back individually at any point in my upgrade cycle. The installer provides a monolithic installation, and it would be far to brittle to try and upgrade that in-place, so a new install and copy/export&import is always the only option.

[espressobeanies]

Hi Axel. Apologies. I meant to say version 5.2, not 5.2.2 since everything else after the major release goes by the date format instead of major/minor versions. You are correct. 

I see and that's probably the better way. Is there a set of install instructions that detail which additional components need to be installed before installing Alfresco CE? I'm referencing this here: Installing additional software for Alfresco Community Edition | Alfresco Documentation 

It's not explicit as to what needs to be installed prior to the main install, but I'm guessing ImageMagick would be the only one based on experience.

[afaust]

As that documentation page states, all the software listed in "Installing additional software for Alfresco Community Edition" will / can be installed using the installer, and it is optional to install them manually instead of having the installer do it (they can be disabled during installing).

There are no concise / singular installation instructions for doing a proper, non-monolithic installation without using the installer in the documentation. There are various documentation sections that address parts of the install procedure, and it is up to the user / administrator to figure out what they need for their environment.

Angel Borroy‌ did a talk at last BeeCon about installing Alfresco components one-by-one which you might want to check out.

Basically, for a non-installer setup you'd need to install/setup:

• Java JDK 8 (JRE is technically sufficient, but for some admin / support interactions, JDK is preferrable)
• Apache Tomcat 7 (ideally, you'd have 2 or 3 separate instances to separate Repository from Share and SOLR - the latter only if you don't use Alfresco Search Services)
• PostgreSQL / MariaDB / MySQL
• ImageMagick
• OpenOffice / LibreOffice (incl any additional fonts you may need to support your office file contents)
• alfresco-pdf-renderer

[espressobeanies]

I see. Thanks Axel.