In the notes below [dspace] refers to the install directory for your existing DSpace installation, and [dspace-source] to the source directory for DSpace 1.5. Whenever you see these path references, be sure to replace them with the actual path names on your local system.

Upgrade Steps

The changes in DSpace 1.5.2 do not include any database schema upgrades, and the upgrade should be straightforward.

  1. Backup your DSpace First and foremost, make a complete backup of your system, including:
  2. Download DSpace 1.5.2 Get the new DSpace 1.5.2 source code either as a download from DSpace.org or check it out directly from the SVN code repository. If you downloaded DSpace do not unpack it on top of your existing installation.
  3. Build DSpace Run the following commands to compile DSpace.
    cd [dspace-source]/dspace/
      mvn package
    
    You will find the result in [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-1.5.2-build.dir/; inside this directory is the compiled binary distribution of DSpace.
  4. Stop Tomcat Take down your servlet container, for Tomcat use the bin/shutdown.sh script.
  5. Apply any customizations If you have made any local customizations to your DSpace installation they will need to be migrated over to the new DSpace. Commonly these modifications are made to "JSP" pages located inside the [dspace 1.4.2]/jsp/local directory. These should be moved [dspace-source]/dspace/modules/jspui/src/main/webapp/ in the new build structure. See Customizing the JSP Pages for more information.
  6. Update DSpace Update the DSpace installed directory with new code and libraries. Inside the [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-1.5-build.dir/ directory run:
    cd [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-1.5-build.dir/
    ant -Dconfig=[dspace]/config/dspace.cfg update
    
  7. Update configuration files This ant target preserves existing files in [dspace]/config _ and will copy any new configuration files in place. If an existing file prevents copying the new file in place, the new file will have the suffix _.new, for example [dspace]/local/dspace.cfg.new. Note: there is also a configuration option -Doverwrite=true which will instead copy the conflicting target files to *.old suffixes and overwrite target file then with the new file (essentially the opposite) this is beneficial for developers and those who use the [dspace-source]/dspace/config to maintain their changes.
    cd [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-1.5-build.dir/
    ant -Dconfig=[dspace]/config/dspace.cfg update_configs
    
    You must then verify that you've merged and differenced in the [dspace]/config/*/.new files into your configuration. Some of the new parameters you should look out for in dspace.cfg include:
  8. Restart Tomcat Restart your servlet container, for Tomcat use the bin/startup.sh script.