Upgrading From Drupal 5 To Drupal 6

Yesterday I took the plunge on my site at www.awakenedvoice.com and upgraded the version of Drupal from 5 to 6. I kept a log of the steps involved in the process which you'll find below.

Before you get started I recommend that you take a look at Greg's upgrade video at http://www.masteringdrupal.com/screencast/upgrading-to-drupal-6. I watched it and it definitely helped with the process.

The upgrade process took me two hours. If you are using Drupal for a single user blog site, and are making minimum use of CCK and Views then I think that you should be able to execute the upgrade in the same amount of time it took me. If you're running a community site with a lot of content, a few custom content types with associated views then you're probably looking at three to four hours.

Keep in mind that there are separate upgrade steps for CCK and those steps need to be followed as well. Also, step # 1 below will be a lot easier if you install the Update Status module first. The module is removed in a later step because this functionality is part of core in Drupal 6.

Don't forget to check if your Drupal 5 theme has a Drupal 6 release. If the theme does not have a Drupal 6 release you'll want to investigate new theme possibilities. Switching over to the core Garland theme during the upgrade is an important step in the process so if you don't investigate this beforehand you may have to delay (unless you want to keep Garland) taking the site back live till you find a new theme.

As I said above there are special upgrade steps for CCK. I didn't find any special steps for Views. As a result I had to rebuild my views using the new interface for Drupal 6. If this information is new to you have a look at the posts in the view I've created over at http://learnbythedrop.com/cckandviews for a crash course on the new features.

One of the last steps below involves re-saving and positioning blocks. The need to reposition the blocks was likely due to the fact that I switched to a new theme. But even after positioning the blocks I had to go to each block and save it again so the location rules I had set (like display only on the front page for example) were not working.

If you make backups beforehand and give yourself plenty of time it should be okay. Feel free to post your own D5 to D^ war stories in the comments. Good luck.

1. Update all modules to latest version.
2. Backup database.
3. Download all site files.
4. Disable/Uninstall Update Status Module.
5. Disable all contributed modules.
6. Switch to Garland theme.
7. Delete D5 files, saving sites, files and any extra folders or files I added.
8. Delete D5 contributed modules
9. Upload latest Drupal release files.
10. Upload D6 versions of contrib modules.
11. Go to /update.php and select continue then update.
12. Review update messages for significant errors.
13. Review modules and enable those compatible with D6.
14. Enable new (but optional) core update status module.
15. Check contributed theme status and update if necessary.
16. Re-save blocks and position.
17. Rebuild any previously built views.
18. Bring the site back online.