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UNiTE, Remote CLI, eXtract Wizard

#11693 Force Joomla 2.5 updates from remote console

Posted in ‘UNiTE and Remote CLI’
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Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
Tool
UNiTE
Tool version
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Latest post by nicholas on Tuesday, 27 March 2012 16:02 CDT

user49856
Quick question, we have been using the Realtyna Maintenance Suite for a couple of years to push out Joomla 1.5 updates because users don't know how to, and wont. It's imperative from our perspective to keep installations up-to-date to prevent hacks.

It looks like the devs for Realtyna Maintenance Suite ( http://software.realtyna.com/products/realtyna-maintenance-suite.html ) are not going to keep the product updated for Joomla 2.5.

Do you have a similar solution for this? From a Joomla hosting company perspective, this is HIGHLY needed in the community and something we would pay for one time, or via annual subscription :)

Thoughts?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
The answer is not a simple yes and no.

No, it can't be possible to push updates remotely. The reason is that since Joomla! 1.6 the updates are no longer just a bunch of files you can extract on the server. There is also an update PHP script and several SQL files which may have to run on each update.

Yes, I have a solution! It's called Admin Tools Professional ;) One of the features is the Joomla! Update Notification Email plugin. When a new version of Joomla! is available, it sends out an email to all Super Administrators of your site. It also includes a handy link. When you click on it, it automatically logs you in and begins the Joomla! update. The link is valid only for 24 hours and once you or any other Super Administrator click on your link, all of the update links are automatically expired (so that there's very little window of opportunity for a hacker to exploit the link in order to log into your site).

So, there you have it. You only need to spend 20 Euros (or less, you get a discount if you already have an AKEEBAPRO subscription) per year. Then you can install Admin Tools Professional on all of your sites.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

user49856
Nicholas, thanks for the prompt reply. Sorry it took so long to get back with you. Its been super busy here.

What we're looking for is an admin console, where you can group sites (i.e. Group1, Group2, etc.) and, if you need, you can click an Update/Upgrade button which would login to the remote Joomla site (maybe via XMLRPC or REST) and push down all the updated Joomla files (typically, you don't have a SQL table update with Joomla core updates).

This way we don't have to press a button 200 times for all the Joomla sites we build and host. That's what the Realtyna Maintenance Suite does for us with Joomla 1.5. I have spoken with other Joomla hosting companies and we're all in the same boat. I even think CloudAccess.net might have this same challenge with 20k + Joomla sites.

Just wanted to run the idea by you to see if one of your awesome solutions would handle this for Joomla 2.5 and beyond. The RMS will hold us over on 1.5 for a little while longer. Seems like a target market waiting to happen with all the companies dedicated to Joomla development and hosting.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
You can do that for Joomla! 1.5 but not on 1.6 or later. Reason: on Joomla! 1.5 updating meant copying over new files. In Joomla! 1.6, 1.7 and 2.5 you have to copy over new files, run the PHP upgrade script and the SQL update scripts. Unfortunately, these last two have to run from inside your site, otherwise your site will remain in a broken state. Running them remotely is not possible, ergo creating a multi-site updater is not possible. Not to mention that the actual upgrade can not run reliably on the majority of servers remotely. I mean, if you have a big upgrade (e.g. 1.7.4 to 2.5.3) on a slow shared host which is using the FTP mode you can not perform the upgrade in a single page load; it fails. Therefore you would need to have FTP access, not just a web API, to perform the remote update (something that Realtyna Maintenance Suite never took into account). Trust me, it gets very complicated very fast.

If you want to support a SINGLE server environment using server-side scripts (like what CloudAccess.net is doing) then it's very easy. But if you want something which can be installed by the user and work on all server environments, sorry, you need a magician not a developer :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

user49856
Nicholas, excellent information about the new Joomala!! It's a shame the core dev team didn't take this into account with Joomla 2.5x since it's running on SO many sites now.

We do own our servers (3 of them) and have been trying to figure out what the best route/solution is for doing mass upgrades of Joomla 2.5 sites on a server, whether it be a Joomla admin console or even a command line interface.

The main reason is 2.5x is still young and when exploits are found, we want to be able to patch these sites as quickly as possible.

The good thing is, we manage our own servers. We don't want a product which can talk to remote servers to perform upgrades. Can't see a market for that :)

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
You are wrong about that. The fact that there is a PHP and a SQL update script means that Going from one version of Joomla! to the next does not require a migration. E.g., going from 1.6 to 1.7 to 2.5 was very smooth, despite these being three very different versions. Your only obstacles had to do with third party components, not Joomla! itself. So, there you have it, the joomla core team was thinking about you when they implemented that feature.

That said, since you are managing your own servers and your own hundreds of sites, I bet you can spend the money required to hire developers to build an automatic updater.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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