Upgrading Drupal

I've built a check list for each time I upgrade Drupal, whether it's a simple (incremental) version upgrade (version 5.4 to 5.7) or a full version upgrade (from version 5 to version 6).

Upgrade

1. Copy the drupal and module files to the web server.

2. Unzip (using tar) the main drupal file.

3. Unzip the modules.

4. Configure the sites directory for each website.

5. Log into the website with the Administrative account (Account #1)

6. Disable all modules (/admin/build/modules)

7. Put database in maintenance mode

8. Backup database to flat file.

9. Update apache configuration to point to new version (commenting out the old lines - by commenting them out, you can easily uncomment them if you have to do a recovery and comment out the newer version).

10. Connect to the website url, adding update.php to the end (to start the update process).

11. Follow on-screen prompts.

12. Enable all modules

13. If you're using WyzWig module, Go back and enable module "Tiny mce" (enabling WyzWig disables it for some reason)

14. If you're using the node_permissions module, Run node_permissions module.

15. Re-run update.php

16. Configure the WyzWig Editor module, and any other modules you need.

17. If you've added or upgrade any modules, fix the role permissions (/admin/user/permissions)

18. Take database out of maintenance mode.

19. Verify as an anonymous user (by logging out) that the site looks the way you want and that the functionality works correctly.

Recovery

1. Drop all tables in the database.

2. Reload the backup into the correct database.

3. Update apache to point to the correct directory (uncomment the old lines and comment the new lines).