When I first installed ownCloud I did a git-based install, as I like to be able to git remote update and then git merge origin/stable. This works really well for DokuWiki, WordPress, Gallery, and other web applications, but was really a pain in the ass with ownCloud; it seems the git-based workflow is really meant for developers (not advanced users!).

I was pleased to find that updating ownCloud stable from a tarball is very straightforward. Note, I’ve only tried updating between small point releases (ie, 5.0.6 -> 5.0.7), so the jury is still out on “major” upgrades (ie, 5.x -> 6.x).

Upgrade instructions

As root, move to the location of your ownCloud installation:

$ sudo su -
# cd /var/www/html

Download the latest tarball and extract it right over your old installation:

# wget http://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-5.0.7.tar.bz2
# tar xf owncloud-5.0.7.tar.bz2

Then navigate to https://yourowncloud.com and you’ll see a message about updating your database to the latest version.