Upgrading Dada Mail

Here's the skinny on upgrading Dada Mail -

There's:

Step #0 Read the change logs, NOTES, etc.

Things change between versions. Before even beginning to upgrade, make sure that you understand the changes in the program and how they may affect your current installation.

The NOTES are located here:

NOTES.pod.html

The changelog is located here:

changes.pod.html

They are your best buddies. They will stop you from going, "When I upgraded, this broke/didn't work like it used to/is different and I don't like it."

If you are upgrading from Dada Mail 2.x to Dada Mail 3.x also see:

Dada Mail 2.x to Dada Mail 3.x Guide

dada2_to_dada3.pod.html

Step #1 Back Up EVERYTHING

Before you begin anything, back up both The Program Itself and The List Files) locations. You never know. You can backup the files by making a copy of them on your server, downloading the files onto your desktop computer, etc. Doesn't matter, but always have a reliable backup.

Step #2 Move the Program Files out of the way.

Remember, Dada Mail, "The Program" - this is the, "dada" directory (and it's contents) that's usually located in your cgi-bin. To do an upgrade, we need this out of the way.

This is what I do:

After I make a backup (see Step 1), I simply rename this directory on the server from:

 dada

to something like:

 dada-backup

Pretty simple and straightforward, no? If I want to get really fancy, I rename it the version of Dada Mail it was, ala:

 dada-2_10_9

This move is more important than you might think - it keeps a backup that is known to work handy, it also makes sure that we're not overwriting the old files, with new files. It works like insurance: the new version doesn't work for some reason? Rename the new copy something like, "dada-new_but_busted" and move the old version back to just, "dada".

Step #3 Install the new Dada Mail

From then on, you can just follow the instructions for an installation of Dada Mail:

http://dadamailproject.com/installation/

Download Dada Mail, upload the new, "dada" directory, tweak the Config.pm file, chmod 755 the mail.cgi script, etc. Takes but a few minutes (mostly waiting for the file upload to complete) and you are done, you have an upgraded version of Dada Mail and you are pretty happy.

One thing that you want to make sure of, is when you are configuring the new copy of Dada Mail, that you set the Config.pm variables similar to what the old copy of Dada Mail had. I say, "similar", since some of these variables do change between versions - but this is what the, "NOTES" and changelog are for.

One thing that will most likely be the same, is what the, $FILES variable is set to. If this is set to the same thing between your old copy of Dada Mail and your new copy of Dada Mail, your already created lists will show up. If not, you'll get the, "Congratulations" screen and NO lists and you'll know you haven't done this step correctly.

Some things of note:

And, that's it.