Note: Before upgrading your installation, perform a complete backup of your data files and database. If the upgrade process fails, you will need to recover from backup before continuing.
If you are using PHP Safe Mode, please ensure that the max_execution_time directive in your php.ini configuration file is set to a high limit. If this or any other time limit (e.g. Apache's "Timeout" directive) is reached and the upgrade process is interrupted, manual intervention will be required.
OJS 3.x is a major rewrite of Open Journal Systems, introducing numerous new concepts and different approaches. The upgrade process from 2.x to 3.x does its best to adapt old content to the new structures, but we strongly recommend performing a test upgrade and exploring the new system before committing your content to the upgrade. Downgrades from 3.x to 2.x will not be supported.
Note that upgrading from OJS 2.4.x to OJS 3.0 will rearrange your submission file storage, so be sure to back it up before running an upgrade.
It is recommended that you execute the upgrade script under the same user account that your server uses to execute OJS. If you cannot do this, you will need to ensure file permissions in your files directory allow the upgrade script to manage files there before the upgrade, and then reset file permissions after the upgrade completes (so that OJS can manage files there when invoked normally via the web).
With that noted, follow the OJS 3.0 process described below.
Upgrading to the latest version of OJS involves two steps:
It is highly recommended that you also review the release notes (docs/RELEASE) and other documentation in the docs directory before performing an upgrade.
The OJS source code is available in two forms: a complete stand-alone package, and from read-only GitHub access.
If you have not made local code modifications to the system, upgrade by downloading the complete package for the latest release of OJS:
- Download and decompress the package from the OJS web site into an empty directory (NOT over top of your current OJS installation)
- Move or copy the following files and directories into it from your current OJS installation: - config.inc.php - public/ - Your uploaded files directory ("files_dir" in config.inc.php), if it resides within your OJS directory
- Synchronize new changes from config.TEMPLATE.inc.php to config.inc.php
- Replace the current OJS directory with the new OJS directory, moving the old one to a safe location as a backup
- Be sure to review the Configuration Changes section of the release notes in docs/release-notes/README-(version) for all versions between your original version and the new version. You may need to manually add new items to your config.inc.php file.
Updating from GitHub is the recommended approach if you have made local modifications to the system.
If your instance of OJS was checked out from GitHub (see README.md), you can update the OJS code using a git client.
To update the OJS code from a git check-out, run the following command from your OJS directory:
git rebase --onto <new-release-tag> <previous-release-tag>
This assumes that you have made local changes and committed them on top of the old release tag. The command will take your custom changes and apply them on top of the new release. This may cause merge conflicts which have to be resolved in the usual way, e.g. using a merge tool like kdiff3.
"TAG" should be replaced with the git tag corresponding to the new release. OJS release version tags are of the form "MAJOR_MINOR_REVSION-BUILD". For example, the tag for the initial release of OJS 3.2.0 is "3_2_0-0".
Consult the README of the latest OJS package or the OJS web site for the tag corresponding to the latest available OJS release.
Note that attempting to update to an unreleased version (e.g., using the HEAD tag to obtain the bleeding-edge OJS code) is not recommended for anyone other than OJS or third-party developers; using experimental code on a production deployment is strongly discouraged and will not be supported in any way by the OJS team.
After obtaining to the latest OJS code, additional steps are required to update OJS's dependencies.
Firstly, update all submodules and libraries like so:
git submodule update --init --recursive
Then, install and update dependencies via Composer:
composer --working-dir=lib/pkp install
composer --working-dir=plugins/paymethod/paypal install
composer --working-dir=plugins/generic/citationStyleLanguage install
After updating your OJS installation, an additional script must be run to upgrade the OJS database.
This script can be executed from the command-line or via the OJS web interface.
If you have the CLI version of PHP installed (e.g., /usr/bin/php), you can
upgrade the database as follows:
- Edit config.inc.php and change "installed = On" to "installed = Off"
- Run the following command from the OJS directory:
php tools/upgrade.php upgrade - Re-edit config.inc.php and change "installed = Off" back to "installed = On"
If you do not have the PHP CLI installed, you can also upgrade by running a web-based script. To do so:
- Edit config.inc.php and change "installed = On" to "installed = Off"
- Open a web browser to your OJS site; you should be redirected to the installation and upgrade page
- Select the "Upgrade" link and follow the on-screen instructions
- Re-edit config.inc.php and change "installed = Off" back to "installed = On"
The official .tar.gz releases contain precompiled javascript. If you are installing OJS using this method, you do not need to compile Javascript.
If you are using the git main branch, or any of the stable branches (e.g.
stable-3_3_0), or have made changes to your
Javascript code, you will need to recompile it following these instructions.
To update the Javascript libraries and rebuild the build.js you have to run
npm install
npm run build