Preparing for an Upgrade
Preparation and planning may be of little consequence for small, casual installations but is mandatory for large enterprise-level installations.
Create a Back Up
Always back up your database and installation before upgrading. Testing the upgrade process on backup copies is advised.
Review Available Upgrade Paths
Use the table below to determine your upgrade path, based on your version of Liferay.
| Upgrade Path | Description |
|---|---|
| Liferay Portal 6.1+ → Liferay DXP Quarterly Release | |
| Liferay Portal 5.x and 6.0.x → Liferay Portal 6.2 → Liferay DXP Quarterly Release | Support life ended for Liferay Portal 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, and 6.0 |
If you’re upgrading from Liferay Portal to Liferay DXP, you can perform the upgrade normally as long as you upgrade to an equivalent Liferay DXP version or higher. For example, to move from Liferay Portal 7.4 GA 127 to DXP, upgrade to Liferay DXP 7.4 U127 or higher. Moving from Liferay DXP to Liferay Portal works the same way.
If you’re upgrading Liferay Portal to a new GA for the same minor version (for example, upgrading from 7.3 GA1 to GA2) and there are no data schema changes, you can start using the new GA immediately. If the schema changed, a startup message reports the new data schema version that you must upgrade your database to—invoking an upgrade with a Docker image is easiest.
If your path includes upgrading to Liferay Portal 6.2, follow the Liferay Portal 6.2 upgrade instructions first.
Some new Liferay versions rename table columns. Any virtual columns associated with these columns inhibit database upgrade and must be removed before the upgrade. After the upgrade, you can add equivalent virtual columns. See Troubleshooting Upgrades for details.
Review Deprecations and Changes to Default Settings
Features and configuration defaults may change in new versions of Liferay. See Deprecations and Breaking Changes Reference for a list of deprecations and changes to features and settings.
Request an Upgrade Patch (Subscription)
Subscription
If you have a Liferay DXP subscription, update to the latest fix pack and/or request an upgrade patch to prepare for the database upgrade. File a ticket in the Help Center to start this process.
Prepare Publications
If Publications is enabled for your instance, ensure you’ve published all active publications before upgrading. After upgrading, active publications are marked as out of date and cannot be published or changed.
Keep in mind that any publication you published before upgrading cannot be reverted after the upgrade process. The Revert option is removed for all publications made on your previous Liferay version.
Prepare Commerce
If you’re using Commerce, prepare to upgrade it before upgrading the Liferay database. See Upgrading Liferay Commerce for details.
Improve Upgrade Performance
Upgrading large data sets can take a prohibitively long time, if you leave unnecessary data intact or forgo performance tuning. There are several ways to quicken database upgrades.
Prune Data
If your Liferay server has instances, sites, pages, or versioned content items (e.g., Web Content articles, Documents and Media files, and more) that are unnecessary, removing them can cut down upgrade time considerably. See Database Pruning for Faster Upgrades on ways to prune your database of unnecessary data.
Tune Database Performance
Adjusting your database for upgrade operations (more data writes than in production) improves database upgrade performance. See Database Tuning for Upgrades for details.
Enable Batch Insert
Enable batch insert for faster execution.