Nice server setup helps streamline upgrades.

jam's picture

Separating your files from Drupal's, and simplifying upgrades

Drupal's developers are constantly fixing bugs and striving to make our Drupal installations as safe as possible - there have been 6 security updates of the 5.x and 6.x branches so far in 2008. If you have several sites, the maintenance work can really cut into your time.

I'd like to share with you a little trick I use in my server setup to streamline the upgrade process when a new core release is available. It not only makes core updates quicker and safer to implement, it also leaves the previous version ready to use on my server in case there are problems with the new Drupal core version.

My setup involves keeping the sites directory outside of the main Drupal installation and using symlinks to tell Drupal where it is. This saves me the step of copying the directory from one Drupal installation to the next when upgrading, which can be time consuming and a potential source of problems on a content-rich site.

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