The Open edX community can share knowledge and improvements more easily when most people use the same stable, consistent version of the Open edX codebase. To that end, edX is creating a series of Open edX releases, which are distinct from the weekly deployments to edx.org and have a longer release cycle (on the order of several months between each release). These releases will be tested both by edX and by the Open edX community, and with each subsequent release we will include instructions for how to upgrade from the previous Open edX release.
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| Release Name | Release Date | Git Tag | Vagrant Box Torrents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cypress RC4 | 2015-08-13 | named-release/cypress.rc4 | |
| Birch.2 | 2015-08-05 | named-release/birch.2 | |
| Birch.1 | 2015-07-27 | named-release/birch.1 | |
| Birch | 2015-02-24 | named-release/birch | |
| Aspen | 2014-10-28 | named-release/aspen |
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The name that you pass to the --name flag should be the same name in the Vagrantfile, and it will generally look something like birchcypress-devstack. Check the Vagrantfile to see exactly what name you need. Once you've downloaded the box file and imported it correctly, you can move on to the standard installation instructions, and Vagrant will automatically know to use the downloaded file rather than trying to download it again. (If Vagrant does try to download the file again, you imported it incorrectly. Check the Vagrantfile to be sure you specified the proper name.)
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Updating an Open edX Release
To migrate from Aspen Birch to BirchCypress, we've provided a migration script to help you out. It's designed to be run on the server where the Open edX software is running. If you are using a Vagrant VM, you need to run this script when you are already inside the Vagrant VM. To download and run the migration script, do the following:
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The script also accepts certain arguments to change how it works – run ./migrate.sh -h to see a help message.Note that Birch depends on MySQL 5.6 and MongoDB 2.6.4, while Aspen uses MySQL 5.5 and MongoDB 2.4.7. It is highly recommended that you upgrade your databases yourself, before running the migration script. If you don't, the script will attempt to upgrade your databases for you, and you run the risk of corrupting all your data if something goes wrong.
Security Updates
If security vulnerabilities or other serious problems (such as data loss) are discovered in the most recent Open edX release, edX will release a new version of that release that includes the fix. We will not make patches of any releases before the most recent one. We are still working on the details of how often to update Open edX releases. We will publicly announce the security issue, and encourage the Open edX community to update their installations to close the vulnerability. If you have found a security vulnerability in the Open edX codebase, please report it by sending an email to security@edx.org. Please do not post the vulnerability to the public mailing lists.
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