[horde] again: procedure for upgrading Horde

[Eric Jon Rostetter]

Quoting Markus Winkler <m at rkus-winkler.de>:

> After updating to a newer Horde version, or a newer version of **any**
> Horde application, you **always** need to update **all** configuration
> files.
> ---- snip ----
>
> It would be nice if you can give me a pointer, link (to the right FAQ?).

There is no single answer, and the answer depends on your versions
being run.

First, in current versions, run the web interface to configure applications.
There is a nice web gui available to the admin to configure the applications,
which does only the conf.xml->conf.php translation.  The really nice thing
is it will tell you which ones need updating, so you don't have to determine
this yourself, and only need to update those that need updating.  Also nice,
it will provide defaults, etc. This takes care of the conf.xml/conf.php issue
only, and only in recent releases.  In much older versions, you will need
to manually update conf.php files (but you really should upgrade to a newer
Horde if this is the case).

Next, for each updated module, I do a "diff" on the rest of the configuration
files to see what has changed, and manually edit my configuration files
as needed based on the "diff" output.  This means going to the config/
directory of each module (including Horde itself) and doing a unix
"diff" on each *.php file with its *.php.dist file, and checking for
differences of any importance.  I just manually merge the changes using
"vi" (use your favorite editor).

Last, you may need to update the translations or the framework software.
For example, if upgrading via patch, you will probably need to run
horde/po/translate.php (from the command line) to update the binary
translations.  Depending on your setup (e.g. if you update via cvs)
you may also need to run horde/framework/install.php manually, but this
is more rare.

> I'm especially interested in the handling of the configuration files. Do
> I have to overwrite all the current working ones with the empty new ones
> and then really have to make *all* the settings from scratch again? Or

No.  You can simple update things which changed manually.

> did I misunderstand something? I'm a little bit confused about this "you
> **always** need to update **all** configuration files". I would like to
> have a clean Horde-environment and therefore want to go the steps the
> developers intended for this procedure.

You need to see what, if anything, has changed in the configuration files,
and update yours as needed.  Some will not have changed, and you will thus
need to do nothing. Some might have only comments changed, and you could
ignore those if you want.  Some will have changed settings, additional
settings, etc.  These are the ones you need to do something with. Often
the changes are small and easy to merge. Sometimes they may be so great
it may be easier to backup your current one, copy the .dist over, and
reconfigure if needed.  It all depends on various things (including
your upgrade path and method).

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!