This page is archived
We're keeping this page up as a courtesy to folks who may need to refer to old instructions. We don't plan to update this page.
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The first step to using Drupal, of course, is to actually get the software and install it. Drupal comes with an installation script that will walk you through a few screens to gather information and then set up your database and create your site settings file for you. In this series, based on the O'Reilly book Using Drupal, 2nd Edition, we'll look at everything you need to make that process run smoothly; you'll find that installing Drupal is quick and painless once some basic requirements are in place. Once you have Drupal up and running, it's important to keep your site up-to-date. New releases of contributed modules and Drupal core come out periodically to address critical security fixes, and it's important to stay on top of updates as they are released. We'll take a look at Drupal 7's built-in Update Status module, which will notify you of updates available for your site, and we'll talk about the steps required to update both individual modules and the Drupal core itself from one version to another.
See our guide Using Drupal Book by O'Reilly Media to access all of our tutorials related to this book. Each series covers a chapter (or appendix).
Prior to installing Drupal, it’s important to make sure that you can actually do so, and understand a bit about how Drupal is structured. The first lesson provides a checklist of Drupal’s requirements, and also highlights important things in the Drupal file structure that are worth knowing before diving into the installation process. We also explain and take a quick look at how you can use Drupal to run multiple sites from the code base, known in Drupal as a multisite installation.
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Drupal installation requirements
Once you have met all of the requirements and gathered the information you need, you can get down to the installation. This lesson assumes that you have already downloaded Drupal, placed the extracted files on your web server, and are able to create your database.
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It’s not enough to just get Drupal installed; you also need to make sure to keep it up-to-date. New releases of modules and Drupal core come out periodically, most of which fix problems, some of which add new whiz-bang features, and some of which address critical security problems. In this lesson we will review Drupal version numbers and what they mean, review the core Update Status module, and then discuss using maintenance mode, and the update.php script.
Note: Not mentioned in the video is the fact that in addition to the user 1 account, you can also log in with any account that has the "administer software updates" permission enabled to run the update.php script.
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Updating your site often sounds much scarier than the actual experience is. The most important step to remember is creating and testing backups of your site. In this lesson, we will create our backups, download a new version of Drupal core, and go through the process of updating our files and running the update.php script.
Note: Not mentioned in the video is the fact that in addition to the user 1 account, you can also log in with any account that has the "administer software updates" permission enabled to run the update.php script.
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Drupal's contributed projects tend to move more quickly than Drupal core and there- fore require more updates within a Drupal version's life cycle. You can upgrade multiple modules at the same time, although it's best to do one at a time to reduce the chance of errors, and to allow you to isolate problems that might come up during an upgrade. In this lesson we will look at our Available Updates report, and use the Update Manager to upgrade a few of our contributed modules.
Additional resources
Drupal.org Upgrade Documentation
Drupalize.Me Guide: Using Drupal Book by O'Reilly Media
Up next: Using Drupal Appendix B: Choosing the Right Modules