Upgrade ownCloud From Packages¶
Note
Starting with ownCloud 8.2 the Linux package repositories have changed, and you must configure your system to use these new repositories to install or upgrade ownCloud 8.2+. The new repositories are at our Open Build Service.
Upgrade Quickstart¶
The core upgrade notifier tells you when a new ownCloud release is available. If you click on it, it takes you to How to Upgrade Your ownCloud Server.

The best method for keeping ownCloud current on Linux servers is by configuring your system to use ownCloud’s Open Build Service repository. Then stay current by using your Linux package manager to install fresh ownCloud packages. After installing upgraded packages you must run a few more steps to complete the upgrade. These are the basic steps to upgrading ownCloud:
- Disable all third-party apps.
- Make a fresh backup.
- Install new packages from the ownCloud Open Build Service.
- Take your ownCloud server out of maintenance mode.
- Run the upgrade wizard or
occ upgrade
(optionally disabling the migration test). - apply strong permissions to your ownCloud directories.
- Re-enable third-party apps.
Upgrading With Your Linux Package Manager¶
Upgrading ownCloud from our Open Build Service repository is just like any normal Linux upgrade. For example, on Debian or Ubuntu Linux this is the standard system upgrade command:
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
Or you can upgrade just ownCloud with this command:
apt-get update && apt-get install owncloud
On Fedora, CentOS, and Red Hat Linux use yum
to see all available updates:
yum check-update
You can apply all available updates with this command:
yum update
Or update only ownCloud:
yum update owncloud
Your Linux package manager only downloads the current ownCloud packages. Then your ownCloud server is immediately put into maintenance mode. You may not see this until you refresh your ownCloud page.
To complete the upgrade take your server out of maintenance mode. You can do
this by changing 'maintenance' => true,
to 'maintenance' => false,
in
config.php
, or use the occ command, like this example on Ubuntu:
sudo -u www-data php occ maintenance:mode --off
You must run occ
as your HTTP user.
Upgrade Wizard¶
The final step is to run the upgrade wizard to perform the final steps of
updating your apps and database. Refresh your ownCloud page and you will see a
screen with some warnings about backups and a Start Update button.
(Alternatively, you may use occ upgrade
, which is covered in the next
section.) Click the Start Update button:
The wizard will put ownCloud back into maintenance mode, display a status screen while the upgrade is running, and when it is completed take it out of maintenance mode and return you to your ownCloud session.
occ Upgrade¶
If you have shell access it is better to not click the Start Update
button, but rather to use occ upgrade
. occ upgrade
is more reliable,
especially on installations with large datasets and large numbers of users
because it avoids the risk of PHP timeouts. This example is for CentOS:
sudo -u apache php occ upgrade
ownCloud or one of the apps require upgrade - only a limited number of
commands are available
Set log level to debug - current level: 'Warning'
Turned on maintenance mode
Checking whether the database schema can be updated (this can take a long
time depending on the database size)
Checked database schema update
Checking updates of apps
Checked database schema update for apps
Updating database schema
Updated database
Update successful
Turned off maintenance mode
Reset log level to 'Warning'
Remember, you must run occ
as your HTTP user. When it is completed refresh
your ownCloud Web page to return to your previous session.
Migration Test¶
Before completing the upgrade, ownCloud first runs a simulation by copying all
database tables to new tables, and then performs the upgrade on them, to ensure
that the upgrade will complete correctly. The copied tables are deleted after
the upgrade. This takes twice as much time, which on large installations can be
many hours, so you can omit this step with the --skip-migration-test
option, like this example on CentOS:
$ sudo -u apache php occ upgrade --skip-migration-test
Setting Strong Directory Permissions¶
After upgrading, verify that your ownCloud directory permissions are set according to Setting Strong Directory Permissions.
If the upgrade fails, then you must try a manual upgrade.