This document refers to the install directory for your existing DSpace installation as [dspace], and to the source directory for DSpace 1.2 as [dspace-1.2-source]. Whenever you see these path references below, be sure to replace them with the actual path names on your local system.

The process for upgrading to 1.2 from either 1.1 or 1.1.1 is the same. If you are running DSpace 1.0 or 1.0.1, you need to follow the instructions for Upgrading From 1.0.1 to 1.1 before following these instructions.

Note also that if you've substantially modified DSpace, these instructions apply to an unmodified 1.1.1 DSpace instance, and you'll need to adapt the process to any modifications you've made.

Upgrade Steps

  1. Step one is, of course, to back up all your data before proceeding!! Include all of the contents of [dspace] and the PostgreSQL database in your backup.
  2. Get the new DSpace 1.2 source code from the DSpace page on SourceForge and unpack it somewhere. Do not unpack it on top of your existing installation!!
  3. Copy the required Java libraries that we couldn't include in the bundle to the source tree. For example:
    cd  [dspace]/lib
    cp activation.jar servlet.jar mail.jar
    	[dspace-1.2-source]/lib
    
  4. Stop Tomcat (or other servlet container.)
  5. It's a good idea to upgrade all of the various third-party tools that DSpace uses to their latest versions:
  6. You need to add the following new parameters to your [dspace]/dspace.cfg:
    ##### Media Filter settings #####
    # maximum width and height of generated thumbnails
    thumbnail.maxwidth = 80
    thumbnail.maxheight = 80
    
    There are one or two other, optional extra parameters (for controlling the pool of database connections). See the version history for details. If you leave them out, defaults will be used.Also, to avoid future confusion, you might like to remove the following property, which is no longer required:
    config.template.oai-web.xml =
    	[dspace]/oai/WEB-INF/web.xml
    
  7. The layout of the installation directory (i.e. the structure of the contents of [dspace]) has changed somewhat since 1.1.1. First up, your 'localized' JSPs (those in jsp/local) now need to be maintained in the source directory. So make a copy of them now! Once you've done that, you can remove [dspace]/jsp and [dspace]/oai, these are no longer used. (.war Web application archive files are used instead). Also, if you're using the same version of Tomcat as before, you need to remove the lines from Tomcat's conf/server.xml file that enable symbolic links for DSpace. These are the <Context> elements you added to get DSpace 1.1.1 working, looking something like this:
    <Context path="/dspace" docBase="dspace" debug="0" reloadable="true"
    	crossContext="true">
      <Resources className="org.apache.naming.resources.FileDirContext"
    	allowLinking="true" />
    </Context>
    
    Be sure to remove the <Context> elements for both the Web UI and the OAI Web applications.
  8. Build and install the updated DSpace 1.2 code. Go to the DSpace 1.2 source directory, and run:
    ant -Dconfig= [dspace]/config/dspace.cfg update
    
  9. Copy the new config files in config to your installation, e.g.:
    cp  [dspace-1.2-source]/config/news-*
    	[dspace-1.2-source]/config/mediafilter.cfg
    	[dspace-1.2-source]/config/dc2mods.cfg
    	[dspace]/config
    
  10. You'll need to make some changes to the database schema in your PostgreSQL database. [dspace-1.2-source]/etc/database_schema_11-12.sql contains the SQL commands to achieve this. If you've modified the schema locally, you may need to check over this and make alterations. To apply the changes, go to the source directory, and run:
    psql -f etc/database_schema_11-12.sql [DSpace database name] -h
    	localhost
    
  11. A tool supplied with the DSpace 1.2 codebase will then update the actual data in the relational database. Run it using:
    [dspace]/bin/dsrun
    	org.dspace.administer.Upgrade11To12
    
  12. Then rebuild the search indexes:
    [dspace]/bin/index-all
    
  13. Delete the existing symlinks from your servlet container's (e.g. Tomcat's) webapp sub-directory. Copy the .war Web application files in [dspace-1.2-source]/build to the webapps sub-directory of your servlet container (e.g. Tomcat). e.g.:
    cp  [dspace-1.2-source]/build/*.war
    	[tomcat]/webapps
    
  14. Restart Tomcat.
  15. To get image thumbnails generated and full-text extracted for indexing automatically, you need to set up a 'cron' job, for example one like this:
    # Run the media filter at 02:00 every day
    0 2 * * *  [dspace]/bin/filter-media
    
    You might also wish to run it now to generate thumbnails and index full text for the content already in your system.
  16. Note 1: This update process has effectively 'touched' all of your items. Although the dates in the Dublin Core metadata won't have changed (accession date and so forth), the 'last modified' date in the database for each will have been changed. This means the e-mail subscription tool may be confused, thinking that all items in the archive have been deposited that day, and could thus send a rather long email to lots of subscribers. So, it is recommended that you turn off the e-mail subscription feature for the next day, by commenting out the relevant line in DSpace's cron job, and then re-activating it the next day. Say you performed the update on 08-June-2004 (UTC), and your e-mail subscription cron job runs at 4am (UTC). When the subscription tool runs at 4am on 09-June-2004, it will find that everything in the system has a modification date in 08-June-2004, and accordingly send out huge emails. So, immediately after the update, you would edit DSpace's 'crontab' and comment out the /dspace/bin/subs-daily line. Then, after 4am on 09-June-2004 you'd 'un-comment' it out, so that things proceed normally. Of course this means, any real new deposits on 08-June-2004 won't get e-mailed, however if you're updating the system it's likely to be down for some time so this shouldn't be a big problem.
  17. Note 2: After consultation with the OAI community, various OAI-PMH changes have occurred: