Enportal/5.4/admin/enPortal installation/upgrading to enPortal 5


enPortal 5 contains many significant changes from previous versions of enPortal. The major changes are detailed in enPortal 5.4 New Features. Due to the significant changes between enPortal 4.x and enPortal 5.x, special steps are needed to upgrade an enPortal 4.x system to enPortal 5.x.

The upgrade process primarily manages the specific transition of the provisioning of content. In enPortal 4.x, the administrator could provision (assign) content directly to Roles, Users, or Domains. In enPortal 5.x, all of the content must be provisioned by Role in order for it to work properly in the UI. If you had previously provisioned content by Role, then it should not be difficult to transition this to the new system. If not, then you may need to create new Roles for any Domains and Users that had content provisioned to them directly.

As with any upgrade, you will need to ensure that any customizations you have are preserved by the files export process. If not, you may need assistance with tweaking the export.properties file to adjust it as needed.


Pre-Upgrade Work

This step ensures that the enPortal 4.x system is prepared for the upgrade process.

Perform the following steps prior to implementing the upgrade:

  • Delete any content that is no longer needed
  • Delete any large log files, to facilitate transferring of files to new system or server
  • Clean up any direct assignments to Users or Domains that should be to Roles
  • [optional] Perform any additional cleanup as desired in 4.x system


enPortal 5.x installation

After completing the Pre-Upgrade Work described above, install enPortal 5 in the new directory or server.
To do so, follow the enPortal 5.x installation instructions.


Files Import/Export

This step bundles some important files from the enPortal 4.x system and transfers them to the enPortal 5.x system.

  • Use the portal filesExport command to generate an archive of the file system content from the 4.x system to a jar file
  • Run the Files Import process in enPortal 5.x to bring in custom files created above


XML Import/Export

This step exports the content from the enPortal 4.x database and loads it into the enPortal 5.x database

  • Use the portal XMLExport command to extract the database content from the 4.x system into the file system "backup" directory
  • Remove certain deprecated files and directories from the "backup" directory before loading into 5.x:
    • /LAFs
    • /directory/system
    • /package/generic
    • /package/system
    • defaultClasses.xml
    • dirMetaInfo.xml
    • styles.xml
    • personalization.xml* (save this file as reference for the role content assignment in subsequent steps)
  • Move the sanitized "backup" directory to the 5.x directory or server
  • Create a custom load file (load<customname>.txt) and use the XMLImport channel (under Advanced tab) to load the sanitized enPortal 4.x backup into enPortal 5.x

Post-upgrade work

This step tweaks the configuration of enPortal 5.x to properly recognize the content that was loaded in the steps above.

  • Create new LAF in 5.x (re-using images from 4.x LAF where applicable)
  • Run LDAP Sync to sync the roles with LDAP if the roles are managed by an LDAP server.
  • Use saved personalization.xml as a guide to identify the content to be provisioned and its assignment to the roles.
  • Migrate the old content location to a centralized location in /deployment/Menu folder. Share content folders to deployment area by right-click on folder in directory and sharing to deployment/Menu (this makes it available for provisioning to Roles under the Content tab)
  • Manually assign appropriate content (Folders and Channels) back to Roles, as to match assignments in the previous system.
  • Run regression test plan to validate changes