phpList Updater plugin question

ℹ️ Support
1

With the new version that just came out (v3.6.13), there’s mention of a new Updater plugin. Now, this existed prior to this new version, just not as part of the main phpList package…correct?

At any rate, before I embark on using the Updater, I have two questions:

On the page of documentation for the plugin:

https://resources.phplist.com/plugin/updater

It says:

“the files in the phplist installation directory must be owned by the web server process, because they will be moved to the work directory.” (as one of the “important requirements” bullets)

My question is that, since three of the files in our current phpList installation are owned by me rather than “apache” (the “.htaccess”, the “config.php”, and the “config_extended.php” files, all in the “config” subdirectory, because I had to edit them). “apache” has group access to them…just not owner access.

Do I need to change that?

My other question has to do with file backups…the same page about the Updater plugin mentioned above says:

“The plugin uses the work directory to download and expand the phplist distribution zip file, and stores a backup of the current phplist files and directories.” It’s that last bit that raises a question for me: Since I have all of the images for our various phpList campaigns contained within the “uploads” folder, does that mean that those will all get backed up (and will doing so “break the bank”, storage-wise)? Or do those need to be explicity excluded from the backup process somehow? The page mentions how to adjust the config so that specific files/folders are not installed, but what about backup? And maybe backing up the images isn’t a huge problem…just figured I’d check before trying it.

Thanks in advance for any info anyone can provide,

2

@dethompsOWU

Yes, but as part of the Addons plugin. I extracted it to a new plugin quite recently.

The plugin needs write access, so if apache has group access which is rw then it should be ok. I will try to replicate your setup to confirm that.

Your uploads folder is not part of the phplist distribution. You would have created it yourself What the documentation is trying to explain is that it is only the files/directories in the phplist distribution that are replaced, everything else is left alone.
If you download and expand the phplist distribution file, this screenshot show the lists directory
image

Only these files/directories are replaced.

3

I changed the lists directory and subdirectories to be owned by me with www-data (the apache process) as group with rw access. The update was successful, but now both the owner and group are www-data. I’m not sure whether that will be a problem.

Also, if you have changed the config_extended.php file and want to keep it, then you need to include that in the files entry in the configuration setting so that it will be restored from the backup

$updaterConfig = [
    'work' => '/....',
    'files' => [
        'config/config_extended.php',
    ],
4

Ah gotcha on all counts and the owner stuff on the config files was just a “for convenience when tweaking settings” thing…not some sort of ongoing thing that I need or whatever.

I actually haven’t changed the config_extended file…I just changed its owner settings back when I was figuring out what settings I needed in the actual config :slight_smile:

So, we should be good-to-go…thanks!