1. USA Football
Drupal Upgrade to Version 7
Dated: 04/06/2013

2. Table of Contents
1. New in Drupal 7………………………………………………………….. 2
2. Why USA Football should upgrade …………………………………… 4
3. Where we must be careful……………………………………………… 5
4. Upgrade Process ……………………………………………………….. 6
5. Impact on USA Football ………………………………………………. 10
6. Other Efforts …………………………………………………………….10
7. List of current USAF Drupal modules and impact..............………... 10

3. What's New In Drupal 7?
2
1.1 Security:
•
More secure implementation.
•
More secure password system - Redesigned password strength validator to make it kinder
and gentler, and clearer.
•
More secure log-in system.
1.2 Usability:
•
Easier administration - No need to include any separate module for administration menus
•
Built in editor to perform better designing of the content
•
Added more drag-and-drop for administrative tasks.
•
Permissions now have the ability to handle more meta-data which is help full to increase the
SEO for the website
•
Added features to the default (tagging on the Article content type).
•
Setting up automated task runs (cron) can now be achieved via Drupal's configuration alone,
without having to install any scripts on the web server.
•
Provides most of the features of the former Content Construction Kit (CCK) module.
•
Custom data fields may be attached to nodes, users, comments and taxonomy terms.
1.3 Database:
•
Added query builders for INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, MERGE, and SELECT queries.
•
Support for master/slave replication, transactions, multi-insert queries, delayed inserts, and
other features.
•
Default to InnoDB engine, rather than MyISAM, on MySQL when available for greater
scalability and data integrity.
•
More normalized database structure to handle large amount of data.
1.4 Several Performance Improvements Implemented
•
Hook API documentation now included in Drupal core.
•
Added OPML import functionality for RSS feeds.
•
Added feed update options.
•
Added support for language-aware searches.
1.5 File handling:
•
Files are now first class Drupal objects with file_load(), file_save(),
and file_validate() functions and corresponding hooks.
•
Files use PHP stream wrappers to enable support for both public and private files and to
support pluggable storage mechanisms and access to remote resources (e.g. S3 storage or
Flickr photos).

4. 3
•
Added a field specifically for uploading files, previously provided by
the contributed module FileField.
2
Image handling:
•
Improved image handling, including better support for add-on image
libraries.
•
Added a field specifically for uploading images, previously provided by the contributed
module ImageField

5. Why USA Football should upgrade?
•
4
In Drupal 7 the database structure is more normalized which leads to handling more data
with high performance, provided the amount of data we’re already dealing with in USAF.
•
In built Caching mechanisms which manages the caching automatically.
•
Main reason to upgrade is that in future if we will be upgrading the system with new software
most of the PHP methods which have been used in Drupal 6 would be deprecated. Software
getting evolved day by day so we need to upgrade our application too accordingly.
•
Drupal will soon launch Drupal 8 we should be easily able to upgrade our application to that
level if we already have performed the upgrading to Drupal 7.
•
It’ll help to make it workable with the new software release.
•
As we’re moving towards an overall responsive site, it’ll be helpful to have the pages done
with the new Drupal version.

6. Where we must be careful
•
We should create a separate instance for the upgrading, as we have huge amount of data
and we can't afford to lose a bit of it.
•
We need to take care of the theme which we are creating either we need to use some auto
upgradable free theme plugins like Zen theme which provides compatible upgrade time to
time.
•
A report is attached with the existing module which we are using and their stability /
deprecation status.
5

7. The Complete Upgrade Process how to Proceed
6
Note: DO NOT run the conventional instalation ( install.php ) at any time during an upgrade. It will empty
your content from the database.
1. Update Drupal core, modules and themes to the latest Drupal 6 versions. (Follow best practices
here. As usual, you should back up your site and database prior to doing this.)
2. Backup your existing site and database.
3. Log in as user ID 1 (the site maintenance user).
•
This is the user name that you created during the installation process for your site.
4. Put your site in maintenance mode
•
Go to the site maintenance page (Administer > Site configuration > Site maintenance).
Select "Off-line" and save the configuration.
•
If you have defined a custom maintenance theme in your settings.php file, comment it out
before proceeding.
5. Change all themes to Garland
•
Go to the Themes page (Administer > Site building > Themes). Enable "Garland" and select
it as the default theme.
•
If you have been using a separate theme for administration, select "Garland" for your
administration theme as well. You can find the administration theme setting at (Administer >
Site configuration > Administration Theme)
6. Disable non-core modules
•
Go to the Modules page (Administer > Site building > Modules). Disable all modules that are
not listed under "Core - required" or "Core - optional".
Note: It is possible that some modules cannot be disabled, because others depend on them.
Repeat this step until all non-core modules are disabled.
•
If you know that you will not re-enable some modules for Drupal 7.x and you no longer need
their data, then you can uninstall them under the Uninstall tab after disabling them.
7. Remove default settings file
•
On the command line or in your FTP client, remove the file sites/default/default.settings.php
8. Remove all old core files and directories
•
Remove all old core files and directories, except for the 'sites' directory and any custom files
you added elsewhere.

8. 7
•
If you made modifications to files like .htaccess or robots.txt, you will need to re-apply them
from your backup, after the new files are in place.
9. Remove uninstalled modules
•
If you uninstalled any modules, remove them from the sites/all/modules and other
sites/*/modules directories.
•
Leave other modules in place, even though they are incompatible with Drupal 7.x.
10. Download Drupal 7
•
Download the latest Drupal 7.x release to a directory outside of your web root. Extract the
archive and copy the files into your Drupal directory.
11. Re-apply modifications to core files
•
Re-apply any modifications to files such as .htaccess or robots.txt.
12. Make your settings.php file writeable
•
Make your settings.php file writeable, so that the update process can convert it to the format
of Drupal 7.x. settings.php is usually located in sites/default/settings.php
13. Run the update script
•
Run update.php. This will update the core database tables.
•
If you are unable to access update.php do the following:
Open settings.php with a text editor.
Find the line that says:
$update_free_access = FALSE;
Change it into:
$update_free_access = TRUE;
Once the upgrade is done, $update_free_access must be reverted to FALSE.
14. Backup your database
•
Backup your database after the core upgrade has run.
15. Upgrade fields
•
If you were using CCK (and perhaps additional modules) to create fields for your content
types, you will need to upgrade the data in those fields as a separate step.
•
Download the Drupal 7 CCK module, and turn on Content Migration. Go to Structure >
Migrate Fields for a page to walk you through the migration process.
Note: There are now several types of fields in core, but not every type. You might need to
download Drupal 7 versions of contributed modules to support other types of fields

9. 8
•
Update contrib modules and themes
16. Replace and update your non-core modules and themes
17. Check the Status Report
•
Go to the Status Report page (Administration > Reports > Status). Verify that everything is
working as expected.
18. Make sure setting.php is secure
•
Ensure that $update_free_access is FALSE in settings.php.
•
Remove write permissions.
19. Remove your site from Maintenance Mode
•
Go to the Maintenance Mode page (Administration > Configuration > Development >
Maintenance).
•
Disable the "Put site into maintenance mode" checkbox and save the configuration.

10. What will be the impact on USA Football
•
Significantly faster application.
•
Easily administrable application
•
Robust support for more data.
•
Can easily upgrade our hardware with new software and it will not affect the application.
•
Can use much more responsive features if we want.
Other Efforts
•
Theme designing and integration
•
Refactoring the modules whose upgrade is not available
•
Testing all the upgraded modules and matching them with our current flow
9

11. List of current USAF Drupal modules and impact on them:
10
List of available modules
#
Module Name
Upgrade Availablity
Dev Version
Available
Stable Version
Available
Comment
1
ad
2
admin_menu
3
amfphp
Merged in serviec
module
Integrated with service
module
4
autoadmin
Merged in Core
drupal
Functionality is Merged in
Drupal 7 core, No need to
have this module
http://drupal.org/proj
ect/autoadmin
6
cck
Merged in 7 Core
Moset of the Functionality is
Merged in Drupal 7 core
http://drupal.org/proj
ect/cck
7
cdn
8
chart
9
computed_field
10 content_access
11 context
12 ctools
13 custompage
15 devel
16 devel_themer
17 disqus
Stable Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Beta Version
Available
Beta Version
Available
Beta Version
Available
Stable Version
Available
Alpha Version
Available
Stable Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Stable Version
Available
18 elements
Merged in 7 Core
21 google_analytics
http://drupal.org/proj
ect/cdn
Stable Version
Available
19 filefield
Url For More help
Stable Version
Available
22
imagecache_actio
ns
23 imagefield
Functionality is Merged in
Drupal 7 core with cck
module Can be removed
http://drupal.org/proj
ect/filefield
Functionality is Merged in
Drupal 7 core
http://drupal.org/proj
ect/imagefield
Stable Version
Available
Merged in 7 Core

12. 24 imagefield_crop
Stable Version
Available
25 imce
Stable Version
Available
26 imce_wysiwyg
Stable Version
Available
29 masquerade
30 matrix
31 memcache
32 menu_attributes
33 menu_html
34 menu_per_role
36 menu_token
35 messaging
36 nodeaccess
Alpha Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Stable Version
Available
Alpha Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Alpha version
available
Alpha version
available
Stable Version
Available
37 nodewords
New Module
introduced
39 page_title
Stable Version
Available
40 rules
Stable Version
Available
41 schema
Alpha Version
Available
42 services
Stable Version
Available
43 simplenews
Use the new Meta-tag
module which is a ground-up
rewrite of Nodewords with
an upgrade path being
worked on.
Stable Version
Available
45 smart_ip
46 smsframework
47 sms_twilio
48 taxonomy_image
49 teamusa_forms
Stable Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Dev Version
Available
Custome Module
listed Under contrib
This is custopm module listed
in the contrib site

13. 50 token_custom
Beta And Stable
Version Available
51 token_filter
Stable Version
Available
52 transliteration
Stable Version
Available
53 twitter
Stable Version
Available
54 varnish
Beta Version
Available
55 views
Stable Version
Available
56 views_customfield
New Module
introduced
57 views_datasource
Dev Version
Available
58 vntf
Beta Version
Available
59
webform_mysql_v
iews
Views php.
http://drupal.org/proj
ect/views_customfield
Stable Version
Available
60 webform_rules
Stable Version
Available
61 wysiwyg
Stable Version
Available
62 menu_token
Dev Version
Available
63 node_export
Stable Version
Available
64 calendar_events
Stable Version
Available
65 cas
Stable Version
Available
66 galleria
Beta Version
Available
67 jcarousel
Stable Version
Available
68 mimemail
Alpha Version
Available
69 quicktabs
Stable Version
Available
70 shadowbox
Stable Version
Available
Note: All above modules we are using into USAF Drupal site. We can upgrade these modules as per the
compatibility for the respective Drupal version

14. List of deprecated/unavailable modules
Module Name
Upgrade
Availablity
Comment
Url For More help
1
cacherouter
Not Available
Alternatively We can use
Drupal Caching
http://drupal.org/project/cach
erouter
2
3
4
dashplayer
flashvideo
logincookie
Not Available
Not Available
Not Available
5
jquery_popupwi
ndow
Depricated
6
ownterm
Not Available
7
slider
Not Available
As the newer version of
Jquery have been
introduced in Drupal 7 Need
to replace with the new
other module
No information for upgrade
to 7
Note : All these modules are deprecated or unavailable with latest version of drupal (i.e. drupal 7)
While upgrading we will take care to check the use of these modules in our site
and as per that we can search for alternative module if we find.
Or we can do the customization for compatibility with Drupal 7 and will move these modules from
contribe to custome
List of modules requiring customization
#
1
Module
articles_import
Comments
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
2
authenticated_landing
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
clinic
css_munge
features
feed_eater
quicktabsmain
quicktabspromo
teamusa
usafmenu
usafootball_theme
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
12 usafootball_video
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
13 uuid
Need To make Compatible to Drupal 7
Theme Customization
1
USA Football Theme
Need to make compatibility customization for Drupal 7