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Updating¶

There are two different scenarios to obtain a newer OTRS version:

Patch level update: you are using OTRS 7 and you want to have the latest OTRS 7 version.
Major upgrade: you are using an OTRS 6 and you want to have the latest OTRS 7 version.

Updating from an earlier version of OTRS 7: You can update directly from any previous patch level release to the latest available patch level release.

Note

It is highly recommended to perform a test update on a separate testing machine first.
Upgrading from OTRS 6: OTRS can be upgraded from any OTRS 6 patch level release to the latest available OTRS 7 patch level release.

Note

OTRS is upgraded by the Customer Solutions Team. Please contact us via support@otrs.com or in the OTRS Portal.
Upgrading from OTRS 5 or earlier: OTRS cannot be upgraded from OTRS 5 or earlier directly to OTRS 7. Upgrades to all available major versions have to be made sequentially instead. For example, if you come from OTRS 4, OTRS has to be upgraded to OTRS 5 first, then to OTRS 6 and finally to OTRS 7.

Note

OTRS is upgraded by the Customer Solutions Team. Please contact us via support@otrs.com or in the OTRS Portal.

Step 1: Stop All Relevant Services and the OTRS Daemon¶

Please make sure there are no more running services or cron jobs that try to access OTRS. This will depend on your service configuration and OTRS version.

The following systemctl commands are only examples and may differ on the target system if it uses different mailer or web server.

root> systemctl stop postfix
root> systemctl stop apache2

If you do an upgrade from OTRS 6, you need to stop the old OTRS cron jobs and daemon (in this order):

otrs> /opt/otrs/bin/Cron.sh stop
otrs> /opt/otrs/bin/otrs.Daemon.pl stop

If you do a patch level update within OTRS 7 (using the new systemd files), stop the OTRS services via systemd:

root> systemctl stop otrs-daemon
root> systemctl stop otrs-webserver

Step 2: Backup Files and Database¶

Create a backup of the following files and folders:

Kernel/Config.pm
custom files in Kernel/Config/Files/
Kernel/Config/Files/User/*
Kernel/WebApp.conf (only in case of a patch level update of OTRS 7, and only if the file was modified)
var/*
files which are not part of the official release package but added manually to the system (custom language files, logos, CSS style sheets, XML configuration, etc.)
as well as the database

Note

It is recommended to have an up-to-date list of files which are added manually or changed in the system.

Warning

Don’t proceed without a complete backup of your system. Use the Backup script for this.

Step 3: Install the New Release¶

Note

With OTRS 7 RPMs are no longer provided. RPM based installations need to switch by uninstalling the RPM (this will not drop your database) and using the source archives instead.

You can obtain either otrs-patchlevel-update-x.y.z.tar.gz or otrs-patchlevel-update-x.y.z.tar.bz2. Unpack the source archive (for example, using tar) into the directory /opt, and create a symbolic link /opt/otrs that points to /opt/otrs-x.y.z.

Do not forget to replace the version numbers!

Note

Package bzip2 is not installed in some systems by default. Make sure, that bzip2 is installed before unpacking otrs-patchlevel-update-x.y.z.tar.bz2.

Unpack command for otrs-patchlevel-update-x.y.z.tar.gz:

root> tar -xzf otrs-patchlevel-update-x.y.z.tar.gz -C /opt

Unpack command for otrs-patchlevel-update-x.y.z.tar.bz2:

root> tar -xjf otrs-patchlevel-update-x.y.z.tar.bz2 -C /opt

It is recommended to create a symbolic link named /opt/otrs that always points to the latest OTRS version. Using symbolic link makes it easier to manage the OTRS updates, because you can leave the directory of the previous version untouched, only the symbolic link needs to be changed.

Execute this command to create a symbolic link:

root> ln -fns /opt/otrs-x.y.z /opt/otrs

If you need to revert the update, you can change the target of the symbolic link back if you did not run the migration script already in step 4. If the migration script was executed, the database needs to be restored from the backup in case of a rollback.

Restore Old Configuration Files¶

Kernel/Config.pm
custom files in Kernel/Config/Files/
Kernel/Config/Files/User/*
Kernel/WebApp.conf (only in case of a patch level update of OTRS 7, and only if the file was modified)
files which are not part of the official release package but added manually to the system (custom language files, logos, CSS style sheets, XML configuration, etc.)

Check for hidden files with the ls -a command like .fetchmailrc, .mailfilter, .procmailrc in the previous OTRS directory. If these files exist without .dist extension, copy them to the OTRS folder using the cp -p command to preserve the permissions.

Restore Article Data¶

If you configured OTRS to store article data in the file system you have to restore the article folder to /opt/otrs/var/ or the folder specified in the system configuration.

Restore Already Installed Default Statistics¶

If you have additional packages with default statistics you have to restore the stats XML files with the suffix *.installed to /opt/otrs/var/stats.

root> cd OTRS-BACKUP/var/stats
root> cp *.installed /opt/otrs/var/stats

Set File Permissions¶

Please execute the following command to set the file and directory permissions for OTRS. It will try to detect the correct user and group settings needed for your setup.

root> /opt/otrs/bin/otrs.SetPermissions.pl

Install Required Programs and Perl Modules¶

Use the following script to get an overview of all installed and required CPAN modules and other external dependencies.

root> perl /opt/otrs/bin/otrs.CheckEnvironment.pl
Checking for Perl Modules:
  o Archive::Tar.....................ok (v1.90)
  o Archive::Zip.....................ok (v1.37)
  o Crypt::Eksblowfish::Bcrypt.......ok (v0.009)
...

Note

Please note that OTRS requires a working Perl installation with all core modules such as the module version. These modules are not explicitly checked by the script. You may need to install a perl-core package on some systems like RHEL that do not install the Perl core packages by default.

To install the required and optional packages, you can use either CPAN or the package manager of your Linux distribution.

Execute this command to get an install command to install the missing dependencies:

root> /opt/otrs/bin/otrs.CheckEnvironment.pl --list

OTRS requires a supported stable version of Node.js to be installed. Please refer to the Node.js installation instructions.

Step 4: Run the Migration Script¶

The migration script will perform many checks on your system and give you advice on how to install missing Perl modules etc., if that is required. If all checks succeeded, the necessary migration steps will be performed.

Note

Please also run this script in case of patch level updates.

Run the migration script:

otrs> /opt/otrs/scripts/DBUpdate-to-7.pl

Warning

Do not continue the upgrading process if this script did not work properly for you. Otherwise malfunction or data loss may occur.

The migration script also checks if ACLs and system configuration settings are correct. In case of an invalid system configuration setting, script will offer you an opportunity to fix it by choosing from a list of possible values. In case the script runs in a non-interactive mode, it will try to automatically fix invalid settings. If this fails, you will be asked to manually update the setting after the migration.

If there are outdated ACLs, the system will not be able to fix them automatically, and they need to be corrected by the administrator. Please see the last step for manual changes for details.

Step 5: Update Installed Packages¶

Note

Packages for OTRS 6 are not compatible with OTRS 7 and have to be upgraded.

You can use the command below to update all installed packages. This works for all packages that are available from online repositories. You can update other packages later via the package manager (this requires a running OTRS daemon).

otrs> /opt/otrs/bin/otrs.Console.pl Admin::Package::UpgradeAll
otrs> /opt/otrs/bin/otrs.Console.pl Admin::Package::ReinstallAll

Step 6: Start your Services¶

OTRS 7 comes with an own built-in web server that is used behind Apache as a reverse proxy (or any other reverse proxy server). For upgrade from OTRS 6, the Apache configuration must be updated with the new version in /opt/otrs/scripts/apache2-httpd.include.conf, if it was copied and not just linked.

Please also note that while mod_perl is no longer needed, other Apache modules are required now:

mod_headers
mod_proxy
mod_proxy_http
mod_proxy_wstunnel

After that, the services can be started. This will depend on your service configuration, here is an example:

root> systemctl start postfix
root> systemctl start apache2

Note

The OTRS daemon is required for correct operation of OTRS such as sending emails. Please activate it as described in the next step.

Step 7: Start the OTRS Daemon and Web Server¶

The OTRS daemon is responsible for handling any asynchronous and recurring tasks in OTRS. The built-in OTRS web server process handles the web requests handed over from Apache.

OTRS comes with example systemd configuration files that can be used to make sure that the OTRS daemon and web server are started automatically after the system starts.

root> systemctl start otrs-daemon
root> systemctl start otrs-webserver

Now you can log into your system.

Step 8: Manual Migration Tasks and Changes¶

Warning

Read this step carefully and apply the actions only if they are relevant to your system.

Since the old customer interface screens are no longer present, some ACLs need to be corrected manually by the administrator. The migration script already informed you if this is the case.

Affected ACLs are those that refer to a non-existing customer interface screen in their Action setting. This front end Action rule needs to be replaced with a corresponding Endpoint rule. A table with possible mapping is included below.

Action	Endpoint
`CustomerTicketPrint`	No replacement (feature dropped)
`CustomerTicketZoom`	`ExternalFrontend::TicketDetailView`
`CustomerTicketProcess`	`ExternalFrontend::ProcessTicketCreate` or `ExternalFrontend::ProcessTicketNextStep`
`CustomerTicketMessage`	`ExternalFrontend::TicketCreate`

RPC is completely redesigned in OTRS 7 and the rpc.pl does not exist anymore. There is an operation within SOAP called Generic::RPC.

RPC web services can no longer be used without problems. You will need to take a look at your web services after upgrading to OTRS 7 and probably rebuild them in a different way.

You also have the option to book a consultant who can work with you to rebuild your web services.

Upgrade Elasticsearch¶

Upgrade your Elasticsearch installation if newer version is available. For more information read the Upgrade Elasticsearch chapter in the official documentation.

Allow Program Safe to Run¶

External programs to be run by OTRS are blocked by default due to security reasons. You have to add the program to the allow list as described in the Administration Manual.