Updating 2.x to the latest release

Updating 2.x to the latest release

Once you installed Noah's Classifieds 2.x, you can update it to the latest release free of charge whenever one is issued! Hopefully, we will issue new releases with great feature additions and bug fixes quite frequently, so it's worthwhile for you to keep your Noah's installation always up to date! Our program has some great comfort features that support you in doing this:

You can check from the admin interface whether a new version is available any time by clicking on the Updates menu point,
You can even set up the program so that it periodically performs this check itself automatically and warns you when a new release is available,¹⁾
If a new version is available, you can perform the update from the admin interface with just a few clicks,
If you still want to perform the update manually, you can download the update package by just clicking on a button on the admin interface.²⁾

There is one thing to note: every release of Noah's has three different versions (as of now): the Free/Eval version, the PRO and the RSS. E.g.: there is a different 2.1.2 Free, 2.1.2 Pro and 2.1.2 RSS version. The instructions of this page only refer to when you update the program to the latest release inside its main version! For example, you can update a 2.1.0 Free version to 2.1.2 Free, or a 2.0.2 Pro to 2.1.2 Pro. As opposed to this, if you want to update your Free version to Pro or RSS, or a Pro version to RSS, you can find the corresponding instructions on this page!

Automatic update

This way of update is called “automatic” because you can perform it solely from the admin interface with just two clicks in the simplest case. The steps of the automatic update are:

Step 1: Click on the 'Updates' menu point as admin. This performs the check whether a new release is available and if yes, it displays a description of the update possibilities for you to choose from.³⁾

Step 2: Click on the Update button. At this point, the program connects to the Noah's Classifieds site and attempts to download the update information. For this, it requires write permission under the classifieds installation directory. If it has no write permission, the program informs you about this and the update stops. You must grant write permission for the program and start the update again from Step 1. Click here to read more about setting file permissions!

Step 3: The program downloads the update package, but before it unpacks that, checks whether it has write permission to the files it must update. If it has no write permission, it lists all the files it must be able to modify, and stops. In this case you must grant enough permission to write these files and restart the update from Step 1. If it has all necessary permission, it lists all the files it is about to update or delete,

Step 4: You click on an other button to trigger the actual update. At this point, before the program overwrites anything, it creates a backup copy of all the files first it is about to modify or delete (if you happened to altered some of them (e.g. template files), this gives you a chance that you later “merge” your changes into the new files!). After this, The program unpacks the new files and performs the necessary database changes, too. This completes the update process.

Manual update

The sad truth about the automatic update is that if we really want it to work with just two single clicks, the file permissions under the Noah's installation directory have to be looser than what is recommended in security point of view! Therefore some may want to still perform the update in a “conventional” way that keeps the file permissions strict and intact. The possibility of manual update is for them. The steps of the manual iupdate:

Step 1: Click on the 'Updates' menu point as admin. This performs the check whether a new release is available and if yes, it displays a description of the update possibilities for you to choose from.⁴⁾

Step 2: Click on one of the below 'Download' buttons - you can choose either archive format,

Step 3: Save the update package on your local computer,

Step 4: Unpack the update package,

Step 5: It is highly recommended that you make a backup copy of the program files before the update,

Step 6: Upload the content of the update package to your server overwriting the old files of your Noah's Classifieds installation,

Step 7: Display update.php in your browser (e.g. if your classifieds installation is under http://my_classifieds_site.com/, then put this into the browser location bar: http://my_classifieds_site.com/update.php). Click on the Update button there and the program performs the necessary database update. With this, the whole update process is completed.

Step 8: We devote a separate step just to emphasize how important Step 7 is! In Step 6, you update the files, but it is always necessary to also update the database and it is what Step 7 does! If you forget that, the updated program won't work.

Comparision, pros and cons

Automatic update	Manual update
If the program has write access to the files/directories it must update, this can be the easiest method - just two clicks and it's ready.	This involves more manual steps, but works always - regardless from the file permissions.
If the program complains about the missing write permissions and you once give it write permission to all the files of the Noah's installation (simply giving 777 permission to all), You need not do this any more and any future automatic updates will be easy and smooth.	Any other future manual updates will have always the same steps
The program itself makes a backup copy of the files it overwrites or deletes during the update.	You must make a backup copy of the old files yourself, before you overwite them with the content of the update package - at least this is highly recommended.
If you give the program full write permission to the source files, it is though very comfortable, but also considered to be less secure (whether one worry about this, it is a question of personal taste and the personal level of paranoia). Of course you can do that you only grant write permission right before the update and reset the permissions to a more secure level after the update, but with this, just the comfort level of the automatic update will be lost.	The program needs to have a write permission to only those few directories it anyway must be able to write. This is more secure.

¹⁾ From 2.1.0 or above, and you can't even switch this checking off in the free version

²⁾ , ³⁾ , ⁴⁾ From 2.1.2