Upgrading dotCMS
dotCMS has a different upgrade process for upgrading dotCMS Cloud vs Self Hosted dotCMS. There are notes that apply by environment, detailed below. For complete, environment-agnostic best practices, see the Go-Live Checklist.
Review the changelog before upgrading. Be mindful of Breaking Changes, which may require changes in our implementation; see the Upgrading: Important Changes page for a summary of all breaking changes by version.
Version changes are inclusive, so you should review all changes between the current version you are running and the target version of your upgrade.
dotCMS 21.06 is the last version to support Oracle and MySQL. See our general directions for migration to PostgreSQL.
If you use MySQL, this tool can also simplify the migration. It is believed to work in most cases, though it has not been tested with significantly old versions — e.g., dotCMS 5.3.8.
As always, we recommend making backups before performing any major operation on a database.
Upgrade on dotCMS Cloud#
To upgrade dotCMS Cloud please have your designated Helpdesk user submit a ticket requesting an upgrade. Please include in the ticket what version you would like to upgrade to and a date range when you would like the upgrade to take place.
Upgrade on dotCMS Self Hosted#
To upgrade your self-hosted dotCMS instance, please follow the directions on the Upgrading dotCMS — Self Hosted page.
Upgrade Best Practices#
Prior to cutting over to your upgraded instance, ensure you complete the Go-Live Checklist for general best practices. This resource is especially recommended if upgrading to Current / Evergreen versioning.
You may also wish to review the Deprecations page.