Once the Odoo server is ready and running, there will come a time when you need to install updates on Odoo. This involves two steps: first, to get the new versions of the source code (server or modules), and second, to install them.
If you have followed the approach described in the Installing from the source code section, we can fetch and test the new versions in the staging repository. It is strongly advised that you make a copy of the production database and test the upgrade on it. If odoo-prod is your production database, this could be done with the following commands:
$ dropdb odoo-stage; createdb odoo-stage $ pg_dump odoo-prod | psql -d odoo-stage $ sudo su odoo $ cd ~/.local/share/Odoo/filestore/ $ cp -al odoo-prod odoo-stage $ ~/odoo-10.0/odoo-bin -d odoo-stage --xmlrpc-port=8080 -c /etc/odoo/odoo.conf $ exit
If everything goes OK, it should be safe to perform the upgrade on the production service. Remember to make a note of the current version Git reference in order to be able to roll back by checking out this version again. Keeping a backup of the database before performing the upgrade is also highly advised.
After this, we can pull the new versions to the production repository using Git and complete the upgrade, as shown here:
$ sudo su odoo $ cd ~/odoo-10.0 $ git pull $ exit $ sudo service odoo restart
Regarding the Odoo release policy, no minor versions are released anymore. GitHub branches are expected to represent the latest stable version. The nightly builds are considered the latest official stable release.
On the update frequency, there is no point in updating too frequently, but also not to wait one year between updates. Performing an update every few months should be fine. And usually a server restart will be enough to enable to code updates, and module upgrades shouldn't be necessary.
Of course, if you need a specific bug fix, an earlier update should probably be made. Also remember to watch out for security bugs disclosures on the public channels—GitHub Issues or the Community mailing list. As part of the service, enterprise contract customers can expect early email notifications of this type of issues.