Welcome to the first post of my blog revival series. I embarked on a substantial project and I'm excited to bring you along on this journey, sharing each step and how I tackled this formidable task.
Prior to entry #7, this blog ran on a single DigitalOcean droplet (grab my ref link https://m.do.co/c/6c6678f2ac68 for a 200USD credit), supported only by PHP7.2, Drupal 8.9.10 (indeed!) and exclusively Composer 1. The objective was a straightforward upgrade to Drupal 10.1.1, the most recent version at the time of writing, with no changes to visual or functional elements. Here's how I divided the upgrade process:
- Upgrade to D8's latest version
- Upgrade to Composer 2
- Prepare a new droplet supporting PHP7.4 and PHP8.1, while retaining active 7.4
- Upgrade to Drush 10 (from Drush 9)
- Transfer the site to the new droplet
- Upgrade to Drupal 9
- Upgrade to PHP8.1 compatible dependencies and switch PHP version on the server
- Upgrade to Drush 11
- Change the admin theme to Claro
- Upgrade to Drupal 10
Considering the extensive preparation, the upgrade process went relatively smoothly—this stands testament to the simple, lean nature of this site with only a single contrib module. However, a few key points emerged from this quick leap from D8 to D10 that are worth highlighting for similar future endeavors:
- Say farewell to Seven: https://www.drupal.org/node/3304670
- Note the config_sync_directory update: https://www.drupal.org/node/3018145
- If your webserver is Nginx, check this: https://www.drupal.org/node/2888767#nginx-php-fpm
- Classy is also a thing of the past: https://www.drupal.org/node/3305674
Stay tuned for more insights as we continue to innovate and improve in this exciting blog revival series.