Before you begin
If not already done, it is suggested to read this Introduction. Which summarized all your options to choose from when updating your Drupal 7.
Update Drupal 7 core using Drush
Steps to update Drupal 7 core using Drush version 8 or earlier. Drush is the Drupal Shell.
1. Backup everything
Drush backs up the Drupal 7 core installation for you when updating, but you might want to back-up the sites directory just in case something goes wrong. You also want to take a backup of the database. Use the command below to back up everything:
drush archive-dump2. Put your site in maintenance mode
drush vset --exact maintenance_mode 1
drush cache-clear all 3. Update Drupal with drush
drush pm-update drupal
Drush will also update your database if necessary.
4. Check that everything works
Go around your site and test everything! If you had modified robots.txt or .htaccess, make sure the modifications are reapplied. (Sometimes you can just copy the old files back.) If you used a custom installation profile, you might have to copy that back too. If the configuration file has changed, make sure your file has the latest and correct information - compare
sites/default/settings.php and sites/default/default.settings.php.5. Put your site online again
drush vset --exact maintenance_mode 0
drush cache-clear all
Alternative Drush commands
Alternatively, you might be interested in those other Drush commands:
drush pm-updateis the same as runningdrush pm-updatecodeand thendrush updatedb, so you can optionally run the latter two commands to break up the process.drush pm-updatecodehas a number of options you can use withdrush pm-update, including--security-only. Learn more here. You can run update commands with-nto prevent it from automatically answering 'y' to every 'y/n' request for user input.
Troubleshooting
- No code updates available for "drush pm-update drupal"
Run following code which will refresh the available releases.
drush rfand rerundrush pm-update drupal