DirectAdmin Tutorial Series 3: updating your VPS

Our pre-installed version of DirectAdmin comes with AlmaLinux as the underlying operating system. By default, AlmaLinux makes use of older versions of software (though with recent security updates) because it prefers stability over new features.

For that reason, not all software on your VPS is up-to-date (they usually are on a new installation). You can check the current versions on your VPS by clicking ‘Admin Level’> ‘Admin Tools’> ‘System Information’ in DirectAdmin. You will then see an overview as in the screenshot below.

Especially CMS systems like WordPress often require newer versions of PHP and MySQL to function. It is therefore advisable to update your VPS.

Updating AlmaLinux

You can update AlmaLinux separately from your DirectAdmin installation. Connect to your VPS via the VPS console in your control panel or via SSH.

Then check if new updates for AlmaLinux are available, and install them directly with the command:

dnf -y update

Updating DirectAdmin

DirectAdmin needs to be updated separately from AlmaLinux using the ‘custombuild’ process. This is a collection of scripts used to update and modify DirectAdmin's configuration.

Step 1

Connect to your VPS via the VPS console in your control panel or via SSH.

Step 2

Run the following commands:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
./build update

Step 3

Check what new updates are available:

./build versions

This command displays an overview of currently installed and possible updates.

Step 4

./build update_versions

This will install any updates of software listed in the previous command. The custombuild-command is a process that compiles the software. This update process may take some time.

Updating PHP

In this section, we show you how to update your PHP. For this manual, we assume that you want to be able to use PHP 8.0 and 7.4 on your VPS. At the time of the last update of this article, older PHP versions no longer receive security updates.

Step 1

Log in as root via the console in your control panel or using SSH.

Step 2

Execute the following commands:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
./build update
./build set php1_release 8.0
./build set php2_release 7.4
./build set php1_mode php-fpm
./build set php2_mode php-fpm
./build set mod_ruid2 no

We adjust the primary version to 8.0. However, you are free to adjust this or the php2_release to another version.

Step 2

Next, process the changes as follows, this will take a while:

./build php n
./build rewrite_confs

Step 3

Apache should automatically restart after updating, but should this not happen, restart Apache manually:

systemctl restart httpd

Further on in these tutorials, we show you how to switch between these PHP versions in DirectAdmin.

Updating SQL

DirectAdmin uses MariaDB as MySQL server by default. Our image at the time of this article's last update comes with MariaDB 10.6. Should 10.7 be supported at the time of your reading this article, we'll show you how to update MariaDB to 10.7. MariaDB largely corresponds to MySQL (see this page for similarities and differences). There are newer versions, but they are not officially supported by DirectAdmin at the time of writing.

Step 1

Log in via the console in the control panel or using SSH as root and execute the following commands:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
./build set mariadb 10.7
./build set mysql_inst mariadb
./build set mysql_backup yes
./build update
./build mariadb

The ./build set mysql_backup yes option is optional: with a new VPS there is no database yet to be backed up, so you do not have to do this.

Step 2

After a mysql update you always have to compile PHP again with:

./build php n

Your MariaDB installation has now been updated to version 10.7.

DirectAdmin updaten

Updating a new DirectAdmin installation is not necessary. If you want to update DirectAdmin at a later time, you can use the steps below.

Step 1

Connect to your DirectAdmin VPS using SSH or your VPS console.

Step 2

To update DirectAdmin, simply run the command below.

/usr/local/directadmin/scripts/getDA.sh current

'Current' can optionally be replaced by alpha, beta, or stable.

Updating DirectAdmin's services

If you aren't changing DirectAdmin's service settings such as changing PHP versions but instead would like to update all installed services/software, use the steps below:

Step 1

Connect to your DirectAdmin VPS using SSH or your VPS console.

Step 2

Updating DirectAdmin should be done through the custombuild script.

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild 
./build update

Step 3

You can check which updates are available using the command:

./build versions

This command gives an overview of all the currently installed versions and possible updates.

Step 4

Install all pending updates using the command:

./build update_versions

The custombuild command is a process that will compile and install updates. The update process can take some time.

Next to being safe, your VPS is now completely up to date and ready to link a domain. Click here to continue to Part 4: Linking domains and subdomains to learn how to link your (sub)domain to DirectAdmin.

Should you have any questions left regarding this article, do not hesitate to contact our support department. You can reach them via the ‘Contact Us’ button at the bottom of this page.