Right now there is a worm making its way around old, unpatched versions of WordPress. This particular worm [...] makes itself an admin, then uses JavaScript to hide itself when you look at users page, attempts to clean up after itself, then goes quiet so you never notice while it inserts hidden spam and malware into your old posts. [...] Upgrading is a known quantity of work [...] Fixing a hacked blog, on the other hand, is quite hard. Upgrading is taking your vitamins; fixing a hack is open heart surgery. (This is true of cost, as well.)
2.8.4, the current version of WordPress, is immune to this worm. (So was the release before this one.) If you've been thinking about upgrading but haven't gotten around to it yet, now would be a really good time.
- excerpt from http://wordpress.org/development/2009/09/keep-wordpress-secure/
I did the upgrade to 2.8.4 in one fell swoop by following the steps in the wordpress codex. There appeared to be only a few glitches that were relatively quickly ironed out and everything seemed to be running fine.
Until I noticed several stray Âs in some of the older posts. And ûs instead of üs, és instead of és, âs instead of âs, etc. etc. It turns out that I SHOULD have disregarded the detailed instructions and googled to find others' recommendations about upgrading the Legacy Wordpress. Thank goodness for backups!! (Please read more about my wordpress upgrade woes. )
When you are upgrading your older version of wordpress (don't put it off!!), take a look Pixelita Designs; they put together a handy (if only I'd seen it!!) step by step guide:
[...]
- Backup your database! If you have the WP Backup plugin, just use that to capture the latest MySQL dump. Otherwise, go through your web host's control panel and PHPAdmin to export the *.sql file to your hard drive.
- Chart your upgrade path. Since you are upgrading from 2.0.11, you should upgrade incrementally, like this: 2.0.11 > 2.1 > 2.2 > 2.3 > 2.5 > 2.6 > 2.7 > [2.8.4]
- Make sure you have downloaded and unzipped to folders all of the WP versions you'll need to complete your upgrade. You can find them in the download archive.
- Using your favorite FTP program, upload WordPress, starting with 2.1, from the folder you downloaded and unzipped. DO NOT UPLOAD any .htaccess or wp-config.php files from any of the distros! You will want to retain your own versions of .htaccess and wp-config.php already on your server.
- Once the first new version is uploaded, point your browser to the /wp-admin folder and upgrade.php. For example, if your WordPress install is at www.yourserver.com, you would go to: http://www.yourserver.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php.
- Proceed to upgrade the database when prompted.
- Repeat steps 6, 7, and 8 above (uploading the incremental versions, invoking upgrade.php and updating the database) until you've upgraded all the way to [the most recent] WordPress
- excerpt from http://blog.pixelita.com/78/upgrading-your-legacy-wordpress-site/
Obviously, if you are upgrading from Wordpress 2.2, you would upgrade 2.2 > 2.3 > 2.5 > 2.6 > 2.7 > 2.8.4 And please remember to start with making a full backup of your wordpress!!
Also, while you are doing the upgrade, you can upload a temporary index file to your wordpress folder. Make a page that looks like your site and put something like "server currently undergoing maintenance - please come back later" on the page. Save it as index.html and upload it to your wordpress folder. Once the upgrade is done, you can remove that temporary index file and get back to blogging.
All wordpress releases are here: http://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/
Hope this helps.
This post was written by Elizabeth from blog from OUR kitchen
