Preferred Upgrade Method¶

The best method for keeping ownCloud on Linux servers current is by configuring your system to use the openSUSE Build Service (see Preferred Linux Installation Method); just follow the instructions on oBS for setting up your package manager. Then stay current by using your Linux package manager to upgrade.

You should always maintain regular backups (see Backing up ownCloud), and make a backup before every upgrade.

When a new ownCloud release is available you will see a yellow banner in your ownCloud Web interface.

Upgrading is disruptive. When you upgrade ownCloud with your Linux package manager, that is just the first step to applying the upgrade. After downloading the new ownCloud packages your session will be interrupted, and you must run the upgrade wizard to complete the upgrade, which is discussed in the next section.

Upgrading With Your Linux Package Manager¶

When an ownCloud upgrade is available from the openSUSE Build Service repository, you can apply it just like any normal Linux upgrade. For example, on Debian or Ubuntu Linux this is the standard system upgrade command:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Or you can upgrade just ownCloud with this command:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install owncloud

On Fedora, CentOS, and Red Hat Linux use yum to see all available updates:

$ yum check-update

You can apply all available updates with this command:

$ sudo yum update

Or update only ownCloud:

$ sudo yum update owncloud

Your Linux package manager only downloads the current ownCloud packages. There are two more steps:

• Take your ownCloud server out of maintenance mode (7.0.11+)
• Run the upgrade wizard to perform the final steps of updating the database and apps.

Your Linux package manager only downloads the current ownCloud packages. Then your ownCloud server is automatically put into maintenance mode. Take your server out of maintenance mode by changing 'maintenance' => true, to 'maintenance' => false, in config.php, or use the occ command, like this example on Ubuntu:

$ sudo -u www-data php occ maintenance:mode --off

occ upgrade is more reliable, especially on installations with large datasets and large numbers of users because it avoids the risk of PHP timeouts.

See Using the occ Command to learn more about using the occ command, and see the Setting Strong Directory Permissions section of Installation Wizard to learn how to find your HTTP user.

When the upgrade is successful you will be returned to the login screen.

If the upgrade fails, then you must try a manual upgrade.

Manual Upgrade Procedure¶

Start by putting your server in maintenance mode. This prevents new logins, locks the sessions of logged-in users, and displays a status screen so users know what is happening. There are two ways to do this, and the preferred method is to use the occ command. This example is for Ubuntu Linux:

$ sudo -u www-data php occ maintenance:mode --on

Please see Using the occ Command to learn more about occ.

The other way is by entering your config.php file and changing 'maintenance' => false, to 'maintenance' => true,. When you’re finished upgrading, remember to change true to false.

Then:

1. Ensure that you are running the latest point release of your current major ownCloud version.
2. Deactivate all third party applications (not core apps), and review them for compatibility with your new ownCloud version.
3. Back up your existing ownCloud Server database, data directory, and config.php file. (See Backing up ownCloud.)
4. Download the latest ownCloud Server version into an empty directory outside of your current installation. For example, if your current ownCloud is installed in /var/www/owncloud/ you could create a new directory called /var/www/owncloud2/

On Linux operating systems, change to your new directory and download the current ownCloud tarball with wget:

wget http://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-latest.tar.bz2

For Windows operating systems see the installation instruction in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.

5. Stop your web server.

Depending on your environment, you will be running either an Apache server or a Windows IIS server. To stop an Apache server, refer to the following table for specific commands to use in different Linux operating systems:

Operating System	Command (as root)
CentOS/ Red Hat	apachectl stop
Debian or Ubuntu	/etc/init.d/apache2 stop
SUSE Enterprise Linux 11 openSUSE 12.3 and up	/usr/sbin/rcapache2 stop systemctl stop apache2

To stop the Windows IIS web server, you can use either the user interface (UI) or command line method as follows:

Method	Procedure
User Interface (UI)	Open IIS Manager and navigate to the web server node in the tree. In the Actions pane, click Stop.
Command Line	Open a command line window as administrator. At the command prompt, type net stop WAS and press ENTER. (Optional) To stop W3SVC, type Y and then press ENTER.

6. Rename or move your current ownCloud directory (named owncloud/ if installed using defaults) to another location.

7. Unpack your new tarball:

   tar xjf owncloud-latest.tar.bz2

   In Microsoft Windows environments, you can unpack the release tarball using WinZip or a similar tool (for example, Peazip). Always unpack server code into an empty directory. Unpacking the server code into an existing, populated directory is not supported and will cause all kinds of errors.

8. This creates a new owncloud/ directory populated with your new server files. Copy this directory and its contents to the original location of your old server, for example /var/www/, so that once again you have /var/www/owncloud .

9. Copy and paste the config.php file from your old version of ownCloud to your new ownCloud version.

10. If you keep your data/ directory in your owncloud/ directory, copy it from your old version of ownCloud to the owncloud/ directory of your new ownCloud version. If you keep it outside of owncloud/ then you don’t have to do anything with it.

11. Restart your web server.

Depending on your environment, you will be running either an Apache server or a Windows IIS server. In addition, when running your server in a Linux environment, the necessary commands for stopping the Apache server might differ from one Linux operating system to another.

To start an Apache server, refer to the following table for specific commands to use in different Linux operating systems:

Operating System	Command (as root)
CentOS/ Red Hat	apachectl start
Debian or Ubuntu	/etc/init.d/apache2 start
SUSE Enterprise Linux 11 openSUSE 12.3 and up	/usr/sbin/rcapache2 start systemctl start apache2

To start the Windows IIS web server, you can use either the user interface (UI) or command line method as follows:

Method	Procedure
User Interface (UI)	Open IIS Manager and navigate to the web server node in the tree. In the Actions pane, click Stop.
Command Line	Open a command line window as administrator. At the command prompt, type net stop WAS and press ENTER. (Optional) To stop W3SVC, type Y and then press ENTER.

12. Now you should be able to open a web browser to your ownCloud server and log in as usual. You have a couple more steps to go: You should see a Start Update screen, just like in the previous section. Review the prequisites, and if you have followed all the steps click the Start Update button.

    If you are running a large installation with a lot of files and users, you should launch the update from the command line using occ to avoid timeouts, like this example on Ubuntu Linux:

    $ sudo -u www-data php occ upgrade

Note

The occ command does not download ownCloud updates. You must first

download and install the updated code, and then occ performs the final upgrade steps.

Please see Using the occ Command to learn more about occ.

13. The upgrade operation takes a few minutes, depending on the size of your installation. When it is finished you will see a success message, or an error message that will tell where it went wrong.

Assuming your upgrade succeeded, take a look at the bottom of the Admin page to verify the version number. Check your other settings to make sure they’re correct. Go to the Apps page and review the core apps to make sure the right ones are enabled.

Now you can enable your third-party apps.

Setting Strong Permissions¶

For hardened security we highly recommend setting the permissions on your ownCloud directory as strictly as possible. After upgrading, verify that your ownCloud directory permissions are set according to the Setting Strong Directory Permissions section of Installation Wizard.