Upgrading to PamelaWare for Wordpress v0.9

Last updated: 26 December 2007

-- Installation instructions for new users here

Preparation

  • Prior to upgrade, we highly recommend you upgrade to Wordpress 2.6.1 or greater in order to be able to add the following security features:
    • edit the wp-config.php file in the main directory of your wordpress install to contain the following lines: 
         define ('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
   define('AUTH_KEY', 'some very long random string');
   define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'a different very long random string');
   define('LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'some other very long random string');
    • Wordpress has defined a link to a page that will generate the above 3 defines complete with random strings: http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/. DO NOT COPY THE STRINGS FROM ANYWHERE EXEPT THE RANDOM GENERATION PAGE.
    • Test that you can login as administrator on your blog - if you cannot, edit the wp-config.php file again and comment out the first define statement
    • If all is working well, you should be redirected to an https URL when you go to the admin section of the blog, and your cookies will also be encrypted using the different keys defined above.

Login To your Admin Console

Do this first, so that in the times where you are messing with authentication mechanisms, you know you can access the admin functionality no matter what.

Back up your Original Database

This is very important. The following mysql command will backup your database:

mysqldump [databasename] -u [databaseuser] -p -h [host] > databasename.pamelaware.bak.sql
*don't assume it worked - look at it and verify!!!

Move/Save a copy of your Original Plugin Files

cd <wordpressinstall>/wp-content/plugins
mv wp-infocard wp-infocard.old

Get The New Version of the Plugin

Recommended: Check out PamelaWare From Subversion

  1. Login to your blog server and go to the 'wp-content/plugins' subdirectory of your wordpress blog cd <blog_directory>/wp-content/plugins
  2. Check out the "wp-infocard" directory from the V0.9 Release Branch:
    svn co https://pamelaproject.com/svn/pw/pwwp/branches/RB-0.9/wp-infocard wp-infocard

Alternative: Download PamelaWare and Place Manually

  1. Click [here] to get an archived copy of PamelaWare v0.9 (current rev is 177)
  2. Upload & uncompress the directory to your blog's plugins directory.

(the directory should be placed in your wordpress installation directory, within wp-content/plugins)

Verify Plugin Availability

  1. If you were using a version of PamelaWare which replaced the Wordpress login page with a PamelaWare login page, you will need to edit your wordpress wp-login.php file and remove the wp_redirect command that sent users to the PamelaWare page (login integration is now done in a much nicer way).
    1. edit the wp-login.php file at the root of the wordpress directory (eg: /var/www/wordpress/wp-login.php)
    2. Search for "infocard"
    3. delete the line containing that string
    4. Save the file.
  2. Open your wordpress admin console, then click on Plugins
    1. You should see your old plugin version, and the new version (v0.9)
    2. If this doesn't work, check the placement of the new wp-infocard directory
  3. Click on Options->Information Cards
    1. Your plugin will be upgraded at this time
    2. When the upgrade is finished, make sure to click the "continue" button and verify that the settings on you page (some old, some new) are properly set for your environment.
  4. Your plugin should be ready to go!

To Roll Back in case of Difficulty

  1. Move the existing wp-infocard directory to wp-infocard.new
  2. Move the original wp-infocard.old directory to wp-infocard
  3. Restore your database to it's original state
    NOTE if you get the direction of the < sign wrong you will obliterate your backup so I highly recommend you make a backup of your sql file before you try this operation. cp databasename.pamelaware.bak.sql databasename.pamelaware.bak.sql.justincase
    mysql [databasename] -u [databaseuser] -p -h [hostname] < databasename.pamelaware.bak.sql