In the notes below [dspace] refers to the install directory for your existing DSpace installation, and [dspace-source] to the source directory for DSpace 1.7.x. Whenever you see these path references, be sure to replace them with the actual path names on your local system.

Upgrade Steps

Before upgrading you need to check you are using the current recommended minimum versions of Java (1.6), Maven (2.0.8 or above) and ant (1.7 or above). For more details, see the current listing of Prerequisite Software

  1. Backup Your DSpace. First, and foremost, make a complete backup of your system, including:
  2. Download DSpace 1.7.x Retrieve the new DSpace 1.7.x 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. Refer to Installation Instructions, Step 3 for unpacking directives.
  3. Stop Tomcat. Take down your servlet container. For Tomcat, use the $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh script. (Many Unix-based installations will have a startup/shutdown script in the /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d directories).
  4. 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. These are normally housed in one of the following places:
  5. Update Configuration Files. Some parameters have changed and some are new. You can either attempt to make these changes in your current 1.6.x dspace.cfg file, or you can start with a new 1.7 dspace.cfg and re-modify it as needed. Configuration changes are noted below:
  6. Build DSpace. Run the following commands to compile DSpace.:
    cd [dspace-source]/dspace/
    mvn -U clean package
    You will find the result in [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-[version]-build.dir . Inside this directory is the compiled binary distribution of DSpace. Before rebuilding DSpace, the above command will clean out any previously compiled code ('clean') and ensure that your local DSpace JAR files are updated from the remote maven code repository.
  7. Update DSpace. Update the DSpace installed directory with the new code and libraries. Issue the following commands:
    cd [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-[version]-build.dir
    ant -Dconfig=[dspace]/config/dspace.cfg update
  8. Update the Database. You will need to run the 1.6.x to 1.7.x database upgrade script.
  9. Generate Browse and Search Indexes. It's always good policy to rebuild your search and browse indexes when upgrading to a new release. To do this, run the following command from your DSpace install directory (as the 'dspace' user):
    [dspace]/bin/dspace index-init
  10. Deploy Web Applications. If your servlet container (e.g. Tomcat) is not configured to look for new web applications in your [dspace]/webapps directory, then you will need to copy the web applications files into the appropriate subdirectory of your servlet container. For example:
    cp -R [dspace]/webapps/* [tomcat]/webapps/
  11. Restart servlet container. Now restart your Tomcat/Jetty/Resin server program and test out the upgrade.
  12. Add a new crontab entry, or add to your system's scheduler, the following, run as the DSpace user, to enable routine maintenance of your SOLR indexes. If you do not run this command daily, it is likely your production instances of DSpace will exhaust the available memory in your servlet container
    [dspace]/bin/dspace stats-util -o