How to upgrade magento to latest version

Magento is vast eCommerce online shopping cart development tool, and magento community and official peoples are keep upgrading with the new version of magento in eCommerce market with new structured development, and everybody wants their should be upgraded with the latest version of magento, and i can say this is not a big job to upgrade if everything is professionally installed.

But you need to aware of few things before upgrading your online store with latest one.

1. Backup your source files.

2. Go to magento backend – Systems >> Tools >> Backup and create backup.

3. You can also create backup using phpmyadmin but it is often getting failed due to time limit in php.ini so just go with System >> tools >> Backup only or else you can dump the magento database using ssh command.

4. Verify the code.

5. You need to confirm if you have done any core hacks in php files of magento MVC structure because on upgradation it will override all the core files of magento and clear your changes and will override with new code.

6. Download all the source code via FTP or control panel.

7. Truncate(remove) cache from /var/cache.

8. Truncate(remove) session from /var/session.

After clearing all above steps just follow below steps to upgrade your magento web store.

1. Just go to you browser and open http://www.yourwebstorename.com/downloader/
2. Access above URL with the user who have all the access over store in nutshell use Administrator.
3. Then just paste the “magento-core/Mage_All_Latest” in the extension install box and just press enter.
4. It will upgrade all the magento core modules automatically.
5. After successfully upgradation just clear your cache and session again.
6. hurrey you are done, :)

Now what if somebody wants to upgrade specific core modules with the latest code.

just use below commands in the extension installation box in http://www.yourmagentostore.com/downloader

>> magento-core/Interface_Adminhtml_Default
>> magento-core/Interface_Frontend_Default
>> magento-core/Interface_Install_Default
>> magento-core/Mage_Core_Adminhtml
>> magento-core/Mage_Core_Modules

Hope it Helps... Thanks....