Geeky Habitat

I have decided to post this a week early as a sneak peek to the rest of the tutorial. I am still working on getting the complete tutorial written up (currently parts 1-3 have been written of an estimated 6 total parts) and it will be completed within 7 days.

Upgrading an Installation of OpenX is quite an easy task to do. However I wanted to put together something with a few more details of the way to FTP files for installing and upgrading OpenX. So I thought that I would put this mini tutorial together to outline the upgrade process and some things to be aware of.

Upgrading OpenX 2.4 to 2.6

For this tutorial I will be using the FileZilla free FTP client, if you would like to follow along I would recommend this as a great FREE FTP client.

Step 1 - Backup your installation:

If there is one thing I can recommend to you before doing an upgrade of any software, web based package etc it is to BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP. Too often I have seen (and have myself as well) upgraded a web based software package and something goes wrong. If you do not have a backup then you are out of luck.

How you back up vastly depends on who you are hosting with and what control panel software (if any) you have. If in doubt please contact your web hosting company and request they perform a backup for you.

Step 2 - BACKUP YOUR INSTALLATION:

No.. really I cannot emphasise enough how much you should backup prior to upgrading so I wanted to put this as two steps for effect. Once you have backed up, move onto step 3.

Step 3 - Download the latest installation:

Head on over to http://www.openx.org/download and get the latest download, if you are uploading via FTP (as most people will) I recommend you download the ZIP version. Unzip the download to a local directory on your computer.

Step 4 - Connect via FTP and rename old folder:

1) Connect via FTP to your site and browse to one directory *above* your OpenX installation directory. For example OpenX was installed in “yourhomedir/public_html/openx” then browse to “yourhomedir/public_html”. For the purposes of this tutorial my OpenX installation directory is “openxupgrade”
2) Rename your OpenX directory on your webserver to “openxupgrade_bak” (or similar).

Step 5 - Upload new files:

1) Create a directory on your webserver which has the same name as the original directory you renamed in Step 4. For example I would create a directory “openx” so I would then have two directories in “public_html” which would be “openx” (currently empty) and “openx_bak” (old installation).
2) Upload the files that you unzipped in Step 3 to the new folder you just created.

Step 6 - Import old configuration:

1) In your FTP client browse to your old OpenX installation folder and then to the “var” directory.
2) Download any files that have “.conf.php” at the end, usually there will be a default.conf.php and yourdomain.com.conf.php, download both.
3) Re-upload these files into the new OpenX installation directory in the same location.

Step 7 - Run Upgrade Wizard:

Browse to http://www.yourdomain.com/openx/www/admin/install.php. You will see the below welcome screen click “Continue”.

Step 8 - Accept Terms and Conditions:

If you accept the terms and conditions click “I agree”.

Step 3 - System Check - Failed:

In this step you will get file permission errors. Follow the graphical instructions to change the permissions via FTP, repeat this for each directory/file listed. Then click “Retry”

Step 3 - System Check - Succeeded:

Click “Continue” to proceed.

Step 3 - Log in as Admin:

In order to upgrade the system you must log in with the administrator account, enter your login details then click “Continue”.

Step 3 - Database Settings:

It is possible you will now get a message regarding Timezone differences, if you need previous statistics to be accurate you will have to fix the data manually, this will not be covered here. Click “Continue”.

Step 3 - Database Upgrade Completed:

Click “Continue”.

Step 3 - Configuration Checklist:

Accept the defaults and click “Continue”.

Step 3 - Upgrade Completed:

In this step ensure that there are no errors. You will see in the below image that we have some issues. If you have SSH Access to your server change directory to the OpenX installation directory and run the commands listed in the RED section to set the correct permissions otherwise you will need to set these permissions through your FTP client. You should then see the second image.   Then click “Continue”