Proper way to upgrade from Magento 1.9.0.1 to 1.9.3 WITHOUT using Magento Connect Update

Question

There have been a lot of threads, but I think my question differs a little.

We plan to migrate from 1.9.0.1 to 1.9.3. By doing so we want to utilize bash.

Our problems:

• earlier developer has changed core files

• we have two folders of Magento (m-v1 [= 1.9.0.1], m-v2 [= 1.9.3])

So the file structure looks like this:

- m-v1
- - app
- - ..

- m-v2
- - app
- - ..

We now want to copy ALL custom files from m-v1 to m-v2 with rsync.

For that we use the following code:

OLDDIR="~/html/m-v1"
NEWDIR="~/html/m-v2"
MEDIADIR="$OLDDIR/media/"
echo "$MEDIADIR" >> log.txt

rsync -au "$OLDDIR/media/" "$NEWDIR/media"
rsync -au "$OLDDIR/app/code/community/" "$NEWDIR/app/code/community"
rsync -au "$OLDDIR/app/code/local/" "$NEWDIR/app/code/local"
rsync -au "$OLDDIR/app/design/" "$NEWDIR/app/design" 
rsync -au "$OLDDIR/app/etc/modules/" "$NEWDIR/app/etc/modules"
rsync -au "$OLDDIR/app/locale/" "$NEWDIR/app/locale"
rsync -au "$OLDDIR/js/" "$NEWDIR/js"
rsync -au "$OLDDIR/skin/" "$NEWDIR/skin"

Now we come to the question itself:

Beside the local.xml, that has yet to be copied, what else is missing here in order to keep Magento working? It seems that I'm missing something, but I cant figure it out. Is my script sufficient? Are there any better ways to upgrade?

About the core changes: I'm trying to point changed files out and move changed content to modules respective files, in order to make this installation upgrade-able again.

Answer 1

1. Take a backup of code and database.
2. If your magento version is 1.9.0.1 then compare the directories of your magento app/code/core folder with default magento1.9.0.1 so that we can know the modified or previously customized files.
3. Similarly compare frontend/base files etc.,
4. After above steps, copy the entire files and folders of default magento1.9.3.1 and paste in magento1.9.0.1
5. Remove cache and session and run front end.
6. If new version has any new database tables it will install or any error occurs simply follow the system.log and exception.log or displyerrors will show the errors.
7. Test all front end and admin pages.

Note:- This upgrade will not effect the theme files.