You are here

Home » Technology » Web Sites » Content Management Systems » Drupal CMS

How to convert from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7

Submitted by Peter on Mon, 2010-12-27 11:25

Here is a conversion from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 for non technical people, for people who can install Drupal and Drupal modules but are not interested in code.

This page is based on experience converting sites from Drupal 6.20 to Drupal 7 release candidate 3.

The quick version

  1. Switch your site offline.
  2. Backup your site because upgrades always fail if you do not have a backup.
  3. Delete the following module(s), if you have them installed, because they are replaced in Drupal 7.
    • imagecache
  4. Update the following module(s), if you have them installed, with the Drupal 7 version. You may need the dev version if there is no stable version.
    • Captcha
    • Token
    • Any other module in /sites/all/modules/ that has a Drupal 7 version.
  5. Replace Drupal 6 code with Drupal 7 code.
  6. Make settings.php writeable. (The same as when you install Drupal.)
  7. update.php
  8. Make settings.php not writeable. (The same as when you install Drupal.)
  9. Backup your site.
  10. Switch your site online.
  11. Login and test your site.
  12. Tweet about being first on D7.

 

Modules to delete

Delete the following modules because they are replaced by code in Drupal core.

  • imagecache
  • imageAPI

 

Modules that will stop you converting

Here are some commonly used modules that are not yet ready for conversion. If you are using one of these modules, decide between waiting for an update or converting to a different on Drupal 6 before converting to Drupal 7.

Module Status
e-Commerce Nothing. The developers say they are waiting on stable versions of other modules.
Browscap Work in progress. Requires applying a patch. Wait for beta version.
Image No automated update. There is a complicated discussion in The Future of Image in Drupal 7. Several of my sites will wait on this because the manual conversion is too much work multiplied by many sites.
Legal Nothing. The developer says he is cleaning up the existing version before conversion.
Monthly Archive by Node Type  Nothing.
Node Auto Term [NAT] D7 alpha version. Features missing. I will wait for a beta version.

 

Module compatibility

Here are commonly used modules that are ready to convert. They may not be thoroughly tested so please perform a test conversion and feed back any problems.

Module Status
Admin 7.x-2.0-beta3. Not tested.
Administration menu 7.x-3.x-dev
Amazon Module 7.x-1.0-beta4
Backup and Migrate 7.x-2.0-rc1
Book access 7.x-2.0-alpha3
CAPTCHA 7.x-1.0-alpha1
Devel 7.x-1.0-rc1
Domain Access Looks like you update from 6.2 to 7.x-2.6 then, if you want the new features, to 7.x-3.x-dev.
IMCE 7.x-1.0
IMCE Wysiwyg bridge 7.x-1.x-dev
Pathauto An out of date alpha version and the up to date 7.x-1.x-dev.
Path redirect Replaced by Redirect currently in beta.
Printer, e-mail and PDF versions  7.x-1.x-dev
Taxonomy Menu 7.x-1.x-dev
Token 7.x-1.0-alpha3. I used the development version because the alpha version looks out of date.
Ubercart 7.x-3.0-beta1
XML sitemap 7.x-2.0-beta1.

 

Theme compatibility

Here are commonly used themes and their compatibility.

Module Status
litejazz Nothing.

 

Converted Web sites

Drupal 6 sites converted from Drupal 5

I have several sites converted from Drupal 5 to 6 and some sites converted from Drupal 4 to 5 to 6. I am testing their conversion to Drupal 7 and cleaning out some of the old stuff that breaks the conversion. Some of my sites have old tables that crash into new tables in Drupal 7. The languages table is an example. I have one site where the Local/Languages feature was turned on once in Drupal 5 then turned off. Drupal 6 did not convert the tables to the current Drupal 6 format. Drupal 7 cannot convert the Drupal 5 format. I deleted the tables in the Drupal 6 version of the site.