Hi,

We did have a rather hacked together Docker image [1] but this was really just intended as a preview demo, so people could have a play with EPrints beyond what you can do on tryme.demo.eprints-hosting.org.  .  If someone want to build a Docker image, then feel free.  Unfortunately, that have not even made it onto my (never get round) to-do list.

I think I have said so many times, "Don't try to upgrade your live production EPrints repository without some prior testing" either on pre-production or a server you span up purposely to test your upgrade, that it feels like a cliche to say this again.  However, just for the record: It is a very bad idea trying to upgrade your live production EPrints repository without testing this on a copy (e.g. pre-production) of this repository.  This is especially the case if you are upgrading between 3.3.x and 3.4.y or similar jumps.  

Regards

David Newman
[1] https://wiki.eprints.org/w/Installing_EPrints_using_Docker (I thought there was a not on this page saying for demo/experimental purposes only. I will look into adding this)

On 23/09/2025 8:30 am, Yuri wrote:

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Is there a docker image of Eprints? With a good compose file (i.e. repo cfg conf in a local dir, database config) and a good .env (hostname, passwords, other general configs that don't belongs to the cfg directories) it could help a lot on migrations. What do you think? I'm also thinking to OS updates and other tasks.

About the topic, the important part is the configuration updates, check if plugins will work, base code customisations (it happens!), then you can also export data and import it in a new installation, no need of an in place migration, even if you can clone your vm and repeat the migration process until you're satisfied of it.

Il 23/09/25 09:08, David R Newman ha scritto:

Hi, 

3.3.16 is not hugely different to 3.3.12.  I would follow the instructions at:

https://wiki.eprints.org/w/Upgrading_3.3.12%2B_to_3.4

However, there are a few oddities here:

1. You are probably not running the indexer through the epindexer init script.  So for the "eprints3/bin/epindexer stop" maybe unnecessary, if you have already stopped Apache.  As if you originally started the indexer through the EPrints web admin interface, stop Apache will stop the indexer as it will have been a child process of Apache.  The important thing is that the indexer is not running.  So run "ps aux | grep indexer | grep -v indexer" to check.  If there are any indexer processes running then you can try the epindexer command, else otherwise use Unix's kill command to kill any running indexer processes.

2.  Rather than using the tarball, I would clone EPrints 3.4 from GitHub (after moving EPrints 3.3 out of the way):

mkdir /opt/eprints3/
chown eprints:eprints /opt/eprints3
chmod 2775 /opt/eprints3
cd  /opt/eprints3
git clone https://github.com/eprints/eprints3.4.git .
git checkout tags/v3.4.7

The first three commands (mkdir, chown and chmod) need to be run by root but the last three should be as the eprints user.  If you do the above it saves needing to run the wget, tar, configure and make commands.  (I am not really sure why the configure and make commands are there in the first place, as they don't look to make any functional changes to how EPrints will run).  Using git should also make it easy to upgrade in future, (just a git fetch and checkout* rather than needing to run all the command listed to deploy the new set of tarballs for the latest release).  I will also you to see if you have modified any core files before you try to upgrade.

If I get a chance, I will looking into updating these instructions to reflect the suggestion to use git rather than downloading tarballs to install EPrints 3.4.

Regards

David Newman
*It is a little bit more complicated than just a git fetch and checkout but for upgrades within the 3.4.x series, probably just an "epadmin update <ARCHIVEID>" is all that is needed.  It is also worth ensuring all server-side caches are cleared, by running the refresh_abstracts and refresh_views options for epadmin and the stand-alone generate_static command.

On 23/09/2025 5:12 am, jokoe soesilo wrote:

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Hi,

i would like to ask wheter there is a recommended best practice for upgrading EPrints from version 3.3.16 to 3.4 could you please provide guidance or documentation on the safest and most efficient upgrade procedure?

 

Thank you in advance for your assistance

best Regards,

jaka

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