2.3 GovCMS updates (April 2020)
The latest GovCMS Drupal 8 (D8) distribution update has been released. Deployment to SaaS sites is scheduled for 4 and 5 May 2020.
Ordinarily Platform as a Service (PaaS) customers are not impacted by distribution updates. On this occasion however, there are impacts to PaaS customers, and you must:
- before the update, complete prerequisite activities
- before the next deployment run, decide and implement an upgrade option.
Important! This document includes critical PaaS-specific information that explains what PaaS customers must do before 4 May.
See: What must my organisation do now? > PaaS customers (mandatory actions), below.
In addition to the usual module and core updates,this release contains:
- an upgrade to PHP 7.3
- an update to Solr 7.5
Active support for PHP 7.2 stopped on 30 November 2019. Security support stops on 30 November 2020, which means that PHP 7.2 is at end of life then.
The GovCMS D8 update includes an upgrade to PHP 7.3, which is supported until 6 December 2020.
See: https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
This section explains what PaaS customers must do before 4 May and before their next deployment run. If you do not follow the instructions below, the GovCMS D8 update may negatively impact your website(s).
For Platform as a Software (PaaS) customers, the updates will not install automatically on May 4 or 5. However, the updates will install when your next deployment is run.
Before the next deployment is run, you must merge any outstanding Merge Requests submitted by the GovCMS team.
Additional information is provided below.
The update from PHP 7.2 to PHP 7.3, means that several modules must be updated, including the Search_API_Solr module. In addition, due to complexities with dependencies, Solr 6.6 will be updated to 7.5 and later to 7.7.
As a PaaS customer, the Dockerfiles in the scaffold that built your initial website are likely to contain a reference to these govcms8lagoon upstream images. Usually, before a PaaS website is built, the Drupal codebase is removed from the PHP images, to minimise the impact of Software as a Service (SaaS) website updates on PaaS websites. However, these images are being upgraded to PHP 7.3 and the Solr image is being updated to 7.5, which means that your site would normally automatically be updated. However, we recognise that this may have unintended consequences for your website.
To prevent the updates from automatically installing on PaaS websites, the GovCMS team has created several GitLab merge requests. These temporarily pin your website to the current PHP 7.2/Solr 6.6 images, which prevents the updates from installing automatically.
Before 4 May, your organisation must review, remediate and merge any outstanding merge requests from the GovCMS team that have been added to your project (example below). This will prevent the updates from applying until your next deployment is run. If you require assistance or further explanation on this, please raise a service desk ticket.
Note: Requests cannot be merged by the GovCMS team or GovCMS Service Desk.
In order to upgrade your Drupal installation going forwards, you must either:
-
upgrade to the new versions of the GovCMS Lagoon images – this will involve ensuring that your particular modules are PHP7.3 compatible, and the version of search_api_solr is configured for use with Solr 7.7
Note: If you intend to become a SaaS customer, this is the recommended option.
OR
-
if you want more control over the update process yourself, replace the current image versions with the upstream source images provided by amazee.io, which allow you to select the:
-
PHP version 7.2 7.3 or 7.4
Note: Versions 5.6, 7.0 and 7.1 are available but are at end-of-life. While amazee supports versions 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4, security support for version 7.2 stops on 30 November 2020, which means it will be at end of life.
-
Solr version.
Note: Versions 6.6 and 7.5 are available. Version 7.7 will be available soon.
-
The GovCMS team will soon provide more information about how to switch from GovCMS8lagoon images to the amazee.io provided images.
If you require assistance with this process, please create a GovCMS Service Desk ticket (https://www.govcms.support/).
Need to contact us? Please email:
- PHP supported versions: https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
- dropzonejs: https://www.drupal.org/project/dropzonejs
- 8.x-1.3 release: https://github.com/govCMS/govCMS8/releases
- Bug fixes: https://github.com/govCMS/govCMS8/pull/449
The latest GovCMS Drupal 8 (D8) distribution update has been released. Deployment is scheduled for 4 and 5 May 2020.
Software as a Service (SaaS) customers do not need to do anything before or after the update, although we encourage you to do post release verification testing.
If you have any concerns, please create a GovCMS Service Desk ticket (https://www.govcms.support/).
This release contains:
- an upgrade to PHP 7.3
- a Drupal core upgrade
- module updates
- a bug fix.
Active support for PHP 7.2 stopped on 30 November 2019. Security support stops on 30 November 2020, which means that PHP 7.2 is at end of life.
The GovCMS D8 update includes an upgrade to PHP 7.3, which is supported until 6 December 2020.
See: https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
The GovCMS D8 update upgrades the Drupal core from 8.8.1 to 8.8.5.
The GovCMS D8 update includes updates to the following modules:
- search_api_solr 8.x-3.9
- search_api_attachments 8.x-1.0-beta16
- dropzonejs 8.x-2.1.
This release includes a fix and update for an access denied error when downloading private files.
See: https://github.com/govCMS/govCMS8/pull/449.
The update does not remove or disable modules.
The GovCMS D8 distribution will continue to be supported after this update.
If your organisation has signed up to a Service as a Software (SaaS) service offering, you do not need to do anything – we will update your website(s) as part of your service agreement. Websites for SaaS customers who:
- do not use search_api_solr as the search engine will be updated on 4 May 2020
- use search_api_solr as the search engine will be updated on 5 May 2020.
This is because the search_api_solr module update must be applied manually by the GovCMS team. For SaaS customers only, this does not affect your existing deployment plans; changes can go ahead.
Need to contact us? Please email:
- PHP supported versions: https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
- dropzonejs: https://www.drupal.org/project/dropzonejs
- 8.x-1.3 release: https://github.com/govCMS/govCMS8/releases
- Bug fixes: https://github.com/govCMS/govCMS8/pull/449
The latest GovCMS Drupal 7 (D7) distribution update was released in early April 2020. For this release we’ve focused on:
- customer-identified issues from GitHub and the Service Desk
- security updates.
This release contains over 20 new items. It adds:
- compatibility with PHP 7.3
- a security patch
- module updates
- bug fixes.
Active support for PHP 7.2 stopped on 30 November 2019. Security support stops on 30 November 2020, which means that PHP 7.2 is at end of life.
The D7 update includes compatibility with PHP 7.3, which is supported until 6 December 2020.
The D7 update contains a moderately critical Drupal security patch for a CK Editor vulnerability.
The D7 update includes updates to the following modules:
- Bean 7.x-1.13
- Better_Exposed_filters 7.x-3.6
- Breakpoints 7.x-1.6
- Custom Contextual Links 7.x-1.7
- Default Config 7.x-1.0-alpha11
- Libraries 7.x-2.5
- MailSystem 7.x-2.35
- Service_Views 7.x-1.4
- Media 7.x-2.24
- Services 7.x-3.25
- UUID 7.x-1.3.
This release includes fixes and updates from the GitHub D7 backlog. See: https://github.com/govCMS/govcms/pulls.
The update removes two modules that Drupal has identified as being out-of-date or that have been problematic for the GovCMS platform:
- Pathauto_Persist
- GovCMS_register.
It also disables the Open ID module.
We have confirmed that these modules are not used by our customers.
The GovCMS D7 distribution will continue to be supported after this update. One more update is scheduled.
If your organisation has signed up to a:
- Service as a Software (SaaS) service offering, you do not need to do anything – we will update your website(s) as part of your service agreement
- Platform as a Software (PaaS) service offering – we advise you to download and deploy the update.
Longer term, if your organisation is using the D7 distribution, you need to plan for a transition to Drupal 8 or Drupal 9.
Need to contact us? Please email:
PHP supported versions: https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
7.x-3.12 Release: https://github.com/govCMS/govCMS/pull/913