Using Drush for Updates
Introduction to Drush
Drush is a command line shell and scripting interface for Drupal. It enables developers and site administrators to perform various tasks quickly and efficiently without navigating through the Drupal administrative interface. One of the most critical functions is performing updates on your Drupal site.
Installing Drush
Before you can use Drush, you need to have it installed. You can install Drush using Composer, which is the recommended way. Here’s how you can do it:
Open your terminal and run:
Make sure to add Composer's global bin directory to your PATH so you can run Drush from any location.
Checking Drush Installation
After installation, you can verify if Drush is installed correctly by running the following command:
This command will return the version of Drush you have installed, confirming that Drush is set up correctly.
Updating Drupal Core
To update your Drupal core using Drush, follow these steps:
First, you should check for available updates. Run:
This will list all available updates for your installed modules and themes. To proceed with the core update, use:
Drush will handle downloading the latest version of Drupal core and apply the update automatically.
Updating Modules
Updating modules is just as straightforward. You can update all modules by running:
If you want to update a specific module, you can specify its name:
Replace [module_name] with the actual name of the module you wish to update.
Clearing Cache After Updates
After performing updates, it’s essential to clear the cache to ensure that the changes take effect. You can clear the cache using the following command:
This command will clear the cache for your Drupal site.
Rollback Updates
If there’s an issue after an update, you might want to roll back to a previous version of a module. Drush provides commands to revert updates, but you must have the backup of your site or use version control. You can revert using:
Again, replace [module_name] with the name of the module you want to revert.
Conclusion
Using Drush for updates is a powerful way to manage your Drupal site efficiently. By following the steps outlined in this tutorial, you can easily keep your Drupal core and modules up to date, ensuring that your site runs smoothly and securely.