Upgrading / Updating / Upgrading Bolt

Note: You are currently reading the documentation for Bolt 3.7. Looking for the documentation for Bolt 5.2 instead?

Note: This page is for updating an existing Bolt 3 installation. If you are updating from Bolt 2.2, see Upgrading a site from version 2.2 to 3.7 instead.

As with all web-based applications, it's good practice to keep your site up to date with the latest version. Bolt is built in such a way, that none of the files that are used for the configuration are included in the distribution files. In practice, this means that upgrading Bolt works almost the same way as installing a new copy of bolt.

If you run into issues after installing, you may have to repeat setting the permissions on some directories.

Skip to the right section below:

Updating on the command line¶

If you're using the command line, updating a Bolt 3 installation is really easy.

• Check if you have a composer.json file. If you've installed from a distribution file, you might have to rename composer.json.dist to composer.json.
• Make sure you have Composer. If not, get it here
• Run php composer.phar update.
• After updating, you should clear the cache, and make sure the database is up to date.

Putting it all together:

php composer.phar update
php app/nut cache:clear
php app/nut database:update

Updating over (S)FTP¶

Download the latest version of Bolt.

Extract the .zip file, and upload to your webhost using the (S)FTP client of your choice.

Note: You want to merge folders and not replace them. Most FTP clients will merge the folders you're uploading, but some replace folders instead. Not sure what your client does? Test this, before you accidentally wipe a folder and its contents.

Updating a git clone install¶

If you've installed via Git, you can update by executing the following commands.

git pull
php composer.phar self-update
php composer.phar update

After updating, you should clear the cache, and make sure the database is up to date.

php app/nut cache:clear

Check and update the database, with these commands:

php app/nut database:check
php app/nut database:update