Zope/Upgrading & Change Management: Suggestions?
This is a basic question, but I'd like to hear some suggestions about fast, easy, and SAFE ways to do upgrading with zope and related products. What methods do you recommend? 1. What are some gotchas to be careful about? Where do the difficulties usually occur? 2. How can you ensure that you can revert back to the previous install? 3. How can I check for dependencies before doing an upgrade/install? 4. Is it necessary to backup the Data.fs everytime you update/upgrade things? 5. How do you keep a log of upgrades/patches? At the moment, I don't have a test/staging machine, so I'm doing changes on a "live machine." (That is not good, and it will soon change). Thanks. Robert Nagle
Simple. #1 Rule: BACK UP (and know you have a good back up) before you do anything.
1. What are some gotchas to be careful about? Where do the difficulties usually occur?
Some product breaks with an upgrade is the worst I have seen (4 years of Zoping)
2. How can you ensure that you can revert back to the previous install?
I back up everything. Twice. And take a copy locally. And burn that to disk (CD/DVD) and take it to work (offsite). No. Seriously, I do.
3. How can I check for dependencies before doing an upgrade/install?
Never been able to do this. I just install and check out.
4. Is it necessary to backup the Data.fs everytime you update/upgrade things?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Unless you like pain.
5. How do you keep a log of upgrades/patches?
Read the mailing lists. Read the sites. Watch Zope.org. Basically, I try to keep the number of products I use to a small amount. I also try to understand (fully) how they work if I didn't build them myself. 80% of the Zope products I use, I have extended a ton to do what I want so it makes it easier to troubleshoot. IE: SimpleURL, KnowledgeKit, AdManager, ZUBB, Photo (and Folder), Poll, YihawDirectory. Jake -- http://www.ZopeZone.com Nagle, Robert said:
This is a basic question, but I'd like to hear some suggestions about fast, easy, and SAFE ways to do upgrading with zope and related products. What methods do you recommend?
1. What are some gotchas to be careful about? Where do the difficulties usually occur? 2. How can you ensure that you can revert back to the previous install? 3. How can I check for dependencies before doing an upgrade/install? 4. Is it necessary to backup the Data.fs everytime you update/upgrade things? 5. How do you keep a log of upgrades/patches?
At the moment, I don't have a test/staging machine, so I'm doing changes on a "live machine." (That is not good, and it will soon change). Thanks.
Robert Nagle _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 02:06:00PM -0400, Jake wrote:
Simple.
#1 Rule: BACK UP (and know you have a good back up) before you do anything.
1. What are some gotchas to be careful about? Where do the difficulties usually occur?
Some product breaks with an upgrade is the worst I have seen (4 years of Zoping)
I didn't see much of this recently except a couple things broke with moving from 2.6.2 to 2.7.0. I had to upgrade LocalFS, not much else. But it did take me a long time to thoroughly test everything and reach that conclusion.
2. How can you ensure that you can revert back to the previous install?
Keep the complete previous install in its own INSTANCE_HOME and software home.
I back up everything. Twice. And take a copy locally. And burn that to disk (CD/DVD) and take it to work (offsite). No. Seriously, I do.
3. How can I check for dependencies before doing an upgrade/install?
Never been able to do this. I just install and check out.
4. Is it necessary to backup the Data.fs everytime you update/upgrade things?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Unless you like pain.
I haven't had Data.fs pain from an upgrade yet in 3 years, but I back it up anyway :-)
5. How do you keep a log of upgrades/patches?
upgrades or patches to what? -- Paul Winkler http://www.slinkp.com
Jake wrote:
4. Is it necessary to backup the Data.fs everytime you update/upgrade things?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Unless you like pain.
I guess I like pain... ...or I accept that ZODB is only ever appended to, and that I can undo any cockups caused by upgrades ;-) I DO back up, but not because of upgrades... Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk
participants (4)
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Chris Withers -
Jake -
Nagle, Robert -
Paul Winkler