The newest security release of Joomla is version 1.5.14 for those of you who may not know.
Get it here:
http://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5244-joomla-1514-released.html
This link will provide you with access to Joomla 1.5.14 Full Install as well as patch files if you are coming from a previous release of Joomla.
Think upgrading is a hassle? Think it's too time consuming?
I hear a lot of the posters upset because I encourage them to upgrade their sites to the "newest" version of Joomla.
Too much work they say. Well, an hour of upgrading, depending on the number of sites can save you hundreds of hours in rebuilding a site. Here's a small snippet from the article:


Don't believe me? Read this:
http://community.joomla.org/blogs/community/698-strange-joomla-behavior-hackers-and-patching.html
And:
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=267&t=117767

Welcome Stefanie.

Thanks for the good advice.

Always happy to help.
New to this site so let me know if I do anything wrong.

You're off to a great start so don't let me slow you down.

Cheers,
Jason.

Hi Stefanie,

I agree with ya 110%

It is so important to keep up to date, the net is moving so fast, you would be crazy not to have a update schedule in place for Joomla, comps, mods and plugs.

Thanks for taking some of your time to post some links

Cheers
Craig

Ok I'm new to updating the Joomla version as I'm working on my first joomla sites.

Please be patient with me as a database noob.

I don't know how best to upgrade from 1.5.14 to 1.5.15

I've downloaded the upgrade patch but don't know what to do now.
I thought I would use the update manager component which I've just installed. However on launcing it I get this message on step 1:

Download Failed: Remote Server connection failed: fopen(jsitepoint.com/update/packages/joomla/update.xml) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found; Using Proxy: No(42)

errmmm I'm lost

Sean

Hey Sean,

It's actually even simpler than that now. You can use the Joomla updater component which handles all of the update elements for you.

So if you use it you will be going from 1.5 .14 to 1.5 .18 in a matter of seconds.

extensions.joomla.org/extensions/core-enhancements/installers/9332

Thanks Anthony

Thanks Anthony,

But that's how I got the error message above.
I've installed the update manager, it launches ok , then when I click on the last line

So lets continue our travels and download the update file >>>

I get the message pasted in my question above.
I have left all the parameters as they were.

any ideas?

The servers where the site is being worked on has this config:
VERSION DE PHP: 5.2.13:
VERSION DE PERL: 5.010000
VERSION DE MYSQL: Ver 14.12 Distrib 5.0.84, for pc-linux-gnu (i686) using readline 5.1

I've read the bits about problems on the dens page , but still can't figure what I can try...

Sean,

I sent you an email this morning with my return address. I believe that I might have a solution for you. I'll be back at my computer later this PM and will reply to your email if you sent one.

Ed

This is what I found :

Download Failed PDF Print E-mail
Joomla! 1.5 Products - Update Manager for Joomla!
Written by Sam Moffatt
Friday, 11 September 2009 10:19

If you have issues downloading the update files you might get the following message:

Download failed: Remote Server connection failed:fopen(jsitepoint.com/update/packages/joomla/update.xml) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found; Using Proxy: No(42).

You might be seeing this error for a few reason:

* You're running PHP4
* Your PHP instance doesn't have a HTTP wrapper

To fix the first one, upgrade to PHP5 - the update manager requires PHP5 to operate regardless. Joomla! 1.6 will require PHP5 and PHP4 is no longer supported at all by PHP, so now is a great time to switch to PHP5. For the second one, presuming you're running on PHP5, you can use the option of cURL. cURL is a library in PHP that may not be available in all cases, but if you check out your PHP Information page (Under Help -> System Information) and see cURL there (use your browsers find tool to help). To set the update manager to use cURL, on the first page select "Parameters" in the top right corner and then under the downloader, set to cURL instead of fopen.

If you need a proxy server to get to the internet to download files then you can set this here as well.


So I tried the cURL thing and got this :
Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set in /home/www/fc7a1b3e3024690c325db82f68f53eb2/web/grid/administrator/components/com_jupdateman/libraries/pasamio/downloader/adapters/curl.php on line 46

Warning: fopen() [function.fopen]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/www/fc7a1b3e3024690c325db82f68f53eb2/web/grid/administrator/components/com_jupdateman/libraries/joomla/filesystem/stream.php on line 166

Warning: fopen(ftp://[email protected]:21/web/grid//tmp/jupgrader.xml) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/www/fc7a1b3e3024690c325db82f68f53eb2/web/grid/administrator/components/com_jupdateman/libraries/joomla/filesystem/stream.php on line 166

Download Failed: Local output opening failed: fopen(ftp://[email protected]:21/web/grid//tmp/jupgrader.xml) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found(43)

Don't you just love error messages

Sean

PS on my server I found this info
"curl
cURL support enabled
cURL Information libcurl/7.18.2 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.8 libssh2/0.18"

OK after some help from Ed, I have found out that the reason is because my hosting service has not set:

allow_url_fopen to On in your php.ini

anyone care to tell me how and if I can do this? I have access via the admin interface to some action on php.

Right , no need to respond as Ed very kindly talked me through a solution.

In case anyone reads this with a similar problem here is what was needed.

In my root Joomla folder I didn't have a php.ini file, instead I had to use the htaccess.txt file which was there

I added the 2 lines of code
php_flag allow_url_fopen On
php_flag allow_url_include On

then renamed the file .htaccess

Logging back into my joomla admin, I then set (in global config) Use Apache mod_rewrite to Yes.

I was then able to use the Joomla updater and it worked perfectly and very quickly.

I can't thank Ed enough for his time and trouble.

Cheers
Sean

Sean,

Glad everything is working smoothly now. You have a unique hosting issue that just needed a little TLC. Oh, thanks for the beer... quite tasty

Ed

Thanks Ed - great to get to the bottom of this.

Magic Updater used to generate the curl error for you so not sure why this doesnt happen with jupdater.

Anyway its all sorted

Anthony

But as I understand it, having allow_url_fopen and allow_url_includes set to = On is a major security threat. I just got hacked and have been researching this stuff, and just changed it in my php.ini file. My site seems to be working fine. However, I haven't updated since I changed it (today), so I don't know if it is going to work or not. In any case, I would like to hear what you guys have to say about this topic. I think if it fails, I will just change it for the duration of the update and then switch it back.

Tyler,

This would be my recommendation based on the security issue.

Ed

Would you recommend this turning on, only for updating, to everyone?

Sean

Sean,

I'm not an expert on Joomla security but if turning something 'on' just for an update would be just one recommendation. The key is making sure it gets turned 'off' when the update is completed. This issue seems to be server specific so it kind of muddies the water a little making a global recommendation.

Sean, the research and efforts you did for your set-up was a big help for a lot of folks and I would like to thank you on behalf of all for this. This is how we all get smarter...

Ed

Ed,

The thanks all goes to you for answering my questions in real time while watching the world cup

But glad all this can help others, I find this forum and the help we all get very quickly invaluable, especially for thickoes like me.

Sean

What's 'the world cup'??



Seriously though, thanks for the feedback Sean.