Upgrading DSpace 6 to 7

Take a backup of the DSpace 6 database and folders

Open a Terminal and apply the following commands,

sudo su - postgres
pg_dump dspace > dspace.backup

The above command takes a backup of the DSpace database and stores in /var/lib/postgresql. Copy the database.backup file to a safe place.

Install DSpace 7 on Debian 11 / Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

We use Debian 11 (Bull Eye) Xubuntu 22.04 LTS to install DSpace 7. ISO file of Debian 11 can be downloaded from the link (I prefer Debian with MATE desktop). Xubuntu 22.04 can be downloaded from here. Users who feel challenged to use barebone Debian can also try Dbebian-based Linux operating systems like Pepper Mint OS. Either burn the ISO file to a pen drive or DVD. Install Debian 11 on the machine. Create a user account during the installation (e.g. mgu). Create the user with the name dspace after installing the Linux-based operating system. If you have already run on Ubuntu/Debian (e.g. for Koha), create a dspace user.

Prepare the system for Dspace installation.

DSpace consists of both a Java-based backend and an Angular-based front end. Both the backend and front end need to be installed separately. Install the prerequisites for the Dspace software. Dspace builds on the Java platform and requires software packages like Tomcat, Solr, Maven, Ant, etc.