How to Manually Update Drupal Core through CPanel

Drupal is a wonderful Content Management System with tons of features that solve many problems for editors and content managers. A developer can take different approaches to achieve the same result, and the Drupal update process is no exception.

It is possible to update Drupal either with Composer, Drush, or manually within the CPanel interface. The first two methods imply that you have at least mid-level experience with the command line and secure shell access to your public host. The third method is more visual and is suitable for developers beginning with Drupal.

Keep reading, if you want to learn how to update your Drupal site with this method.

Step #1. The Local Installation

This tutorial assumes, you already have managed to create a local installation, as described in steps #6 and #7 of this tutorial. This tutorial will build upon that example.

• Enter the SSH mode of the virtual machine (Scotch box) 

vagrant up

vagrant ssh

• Access the public directory of your virtual machine

cd /var/www/public   

• Enter 192.168.33.10 on the address bar of your browser to access the site
• Click Configuration > Maintenance mode
• Check Put site into maintenance mode
• Click Save configuration

The local site is now in maintenance mode. You need to create a backup of the database and of the codebase. 

• In the terminal of your PC, type:  tar -zcvf drupal-backup.tar.gz .

To create a compressed file called drupal-backup.tar.gz of the public directory. This process will take about one minute. 

To create a copy of the database type: 

mysqldump -u root -p my_drupal_8 > /var/www/public/my_drupal_8.sql

• Enter root as password (you won’t see any characters rendered on the screen)

Notice that these two files are now stored inside the public directory within the virtual machine and also in the public directory located at mydrupalbox in your projects folder. 

 Step #2. - Installing on a Production Server

On a regular hosting provider, you normally install your application (e.g. Drupal) with a one-click-install procedure. 

The hosting provider will assign a Username and Password for the newly created account. We need these, to edit the settings.php file of the installation we are going to import. 

• Click the link to CPanel
• Click File manager within the Files section

• Click on the public_html folder on the left 

On the right is the Drupal codebase installed by the system of your hosting provider.

• Select all files and folders
• Press Delete
• On the menu bar Click Upload, a new tab will open

• Click Select file
• Upload the compressed file you created in the last step

• Select the file
• Click Extract
• Click Extract file(s)
• Click Close
• Select the tar.gz file and press Delete
• Press Confirm
• Open the sites/default folder
• Select the settings.php file
• Click the pencil on the menu bar, to edit the file
• Scroll down to the end of the file
• Change the database, username, and password with the ones you got from your hosting provider (hint: a better approach is to edit the file before compression on your local installation)

To find out the database name, head over to CPanel. In the Databases section, click  phpmyadmin 

The database name is on the left. 

• Edit the settings.php file accordingly 
• Click Save changes
• Click Close

 Step #3. - The Database

• In phpmyadmin scroll down and click Select all, to select all tables

• On the dropdown select DROP
•  Click Yes/ok

The database is now empty.

• Click Import
• Select the database backup you created in the last step

• Click Continue

The system will prompt you, once the import process has finished.

• In the address bar of your browser type:  mysitedomain.com/user 
• Enter your Username and password - make sure that you change these in your user profile, in case you had a less secure password in your local installation
• On the address bar type: mysitedomain.com/update.php

You will be redirected to the Update screen

• Click Continue

If everything goes well, the system will prompt you to continue to the Front page or the Administration pages. 

• Click Administration pages
• Click Configuration > Maintenance mode
• Uncheck Put site into maintenance mode
• Click Save configuration

How to Update Drupal Core

The first thing you have to check on your local installation is the status of core and contrib modules. 

After putting your local installation on maintenance mode, and making backups of the codebase and the database, position your cursor at the root folder of your local installation (the composer.json file is there)

• Type: composer outdated "drupal/*"   

To check for outdated modules.

• To update modules type: composer require drupal/modulename     

Just like re-installing the module.

You can update all modules, but as you can see, the drupal/core package is not listed. 

Honestly, I don’t know what this is about, however, this is simple to solve. 

• Edit the composer.json file

Omit the “replace” section and place the “drupal/core”: ”^8.x” statement inside the “require” section.

rm composer.lock     -To delete the file.

sudo rm -R vendor    -To delete the folder

 composer update drupal/core --with-dependencies     -To update Drupal core. This will also generate the vendor folder and the composer.json file.

Now you need to start over with step #2. You will not need to upload the database this time.  

I hope you liked this tutorial.

Thanks for reading!

About the author

Jorge lived in Ecuador and Germany. Now he is back to his homeland Colombia. He spends his time translating from English and German to Spanish. He enjoys playing with Drupal and other Open Source Content Management Systems and technologies.