21 steps to upgrade Alfresco community edition
Thanks to Kostas Katsaros who wrote an howto on http://www.fossoffice.com/en/2012/10/31/alfresco-community-upgrade/
I had followed the steps as mentioned on his blog and upgraded Alfresco on Amazon AWS.
Here are the 21 steps to upgrade Alfresco
Change to root user or use 'sudo' before every command
1] stop alfresco server. From the Alfresco installation folder, execute the command
sh /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/alfresco.sh stop
2] backup Alfresco installation
cp /opt/alfresco-4.0.d /opt/backup_of_alfresco-4.0.d -R
3] Turn off Solr
Edit the alfresco-global.properties
vi /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
Change solr indexing as under:
### Solr indexing ###
index.subsystem.name=solrnoindex
dir.keystore=${dir.root}/keystore
#solr.port.ssl=8443
(replace solr with noindex)
4] start and stop Alfresco server (the sleep command will give ample time for the server to start properly)
sh /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/alfresco.sh start && sleep 300 && sh /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/alfresco.sh stop
5] start postgresql server
sh /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/alfresco.sh start postgresql
6] Install Postgresql client
apt-get install postgresql-client-common postgresql-client
7] Change to Postgres user
su postgres
8] backup the database
pg_dump -h localhost alfresco > /opt/alfdbdump
exit
9] stop postgresql database
sh /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/alfresco.sh stop
10] delete the Alfresco service file
rm /etc/init.d/alfresco
11] install the new version in a new directory (/opt/alfresco-4.2.b)
Note: do not start Alfresco when it prompts during installation. Use the same admin password as previous installation
12] start postgresql database
sh /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/alfresco.sh start postgresql
13] change to postgres user
su postgres
14] delete the Alfresco database
dropdb alfresco -h localhost -i
15] Create a new Alfresco database
createdb -T template0 alfresco -h localhost
16] restore the database
psql alfresco -h localhost < /opt/alfdbdump
17] stop Alfresco
sh /opt/alfresco-4.2.b/alfresco.sh stop
18] Copy the backup to new location
cd /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/alf_data
mv contentstore contentstore.deleted /opt/alfresco-4.2.b/alf_data/
19] start and stop Alfresco
sh /opt/alfresco-4.2.b/alfresco.sh start && sleep 300 && sh /opt/alfresco-4.2.b/alfresco.sh stop
20] Revert to Solr
/opt/alfresco-4.2.b/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
Change solr indexing as under:
### Solr indexing ###
index.subsystem.name=solrnoindex
dir.keystore=${dir.root}/keystore
#solr.port.ssl=8443
(change noindex to solr)
21] Start Alfresco
sh /opt/alfresco-4.2.b/alfresco.sh start
If you had enabled LDAP Authentication on the previous install then you will have to copy the contents from /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties.
Refer to How to Setup Windows AD authentication on Alfresco Share to Setup Windows AD authentication on Alfresco Share article for more information and if you had enabled site templates and dashboard refer to Step by Step guide to Customize Alfresco Share layout dashlets pages and document library