In general upgrading phpIPAM is a 6 step process:

1. Check PHP requirements
2. Backup database and config.php configuration file
3. Prepare for composer package management [ *upgrading from phpIPAM < v1.9.0 ]
4. Upgrade phpIPAM code
5. Update webserver configuration [ *upgrading from phpIPAM < v1.9.0 ]
6. Upgrade phpIPAM database.

Before upgrading ensure you backup your MySQL database

From version 1.7 onwards we have multiple branches available:

• master: Tracks the latest stable release (choose this if unsure)
• 1.x: Stable 1.x.y point release branches.
• develop: Current development version

Pulling from the master git branch will install the latest available stable release, otherwise you need to switch to the required branch.

Check the Supported PHP versions section in README.md and ensure your hosting environment is compatible with your chosen version of phpIPAM.

Check PHP version via GUI

Administration -> Version Check

Check PHP version via command line

[root@ipam:/]$ php -v
PHP 8.2.30 (cli) (built: Feb 28 2026 07:07:34) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.2.30, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.2.30, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Upgrade PHP to a supported version before proceeding with the upgrade.

All phpIPAM state is stored in config.php and the database, separated from the PHP/HTML code. If you have a MySQL backup and archived config.php you can always restore if anything goes wrong during the upgrade process. Before proceeding backup your SQL database and config.php by following these steps.

via GUI

Administration -> Import / Export -> Prepare MySQL dump

via command line

// config.php
/**
 * database connection details
 ******************************/
$db['host'] = 'database_host';
$db['user'] = 'username';
$db['pass'] = 'password';
$db['name'] = 'database_name';
$db['port'] = 3306;

(adjust directories etc. according to your installation):

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam/
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ mysqldump -h 'database_host' -u 'username' -p 'database_name' >db/bkp/phpipam_migration_backup.db
Enter password:

Backup your config.php file containing database connection settings for phpIPAM.

phpIPAM versions prior to 1.9.0 use a mix of git submodule and composer packages installed in the functions sub-directory.

phpIPAM version 1.9.0 and above switched to composer exclusively for package management in the project root directory.

Before you upgrade to 1.9.0 or above from 1.8.x or below, remove legacy git submodules by running git submodule deinit.

Ensure you have a backup your SQL database and config.php before proceeding

(adjust directories etc. according to your installation):

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam/]$ git submodule deinit -f --all
Cleared directory 'app/login/captcha'
Cleared directory 'functions/GoogleAuthenticator'
Cleared directory 'functions/LdapRecord'
Cleared directory 'functions/PHPMailer'
Cleared directory 'functions/parsedown'
Cleared directory 'functions/php-saml'
Cleared directory 'functions/qrcodejs'
Cleared directory 'functions/xmlseclibs'

Additionally remove the legacy functions/vendor composer package directory.

(adjust directories etc. according to your installation):

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam/]$ rm -fr functions/vendor

If you are using master branch on GitHub simply pull the latest stable release and update dependencies:

(adjust directories etc. according to your installation):

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ git pull
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ composer install --no-dev --no-scripts

If you use specific branch, pull down new code, switch to desired branch and update dependencies;

(adjust directories etc. according to your installation):

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ git pull
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ git checkout -b 1.9 origin/1.9
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ composer install --no-dev --no-scripts

If you use specific branch, pull down new code, switch to desired branch and update dependencies;

(adjust directories etc. according to your installation):

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ git pull
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ git checkout -b 1.8 origin/1.8
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ git submodule update --init --recursive
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ cd functions
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam/functions]$ composer install --no-dev --no-scripts

To manually extract new phpipam release head over to https://github.com/phpipam/phpipam/releases, check assets and download files. Than extract new code and copy over old config.php file.

(adjust directories etc. according to your installation):

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ tar -xvf phpipam-v1.9.0.tgz
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ cp /backup/location/config.php /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ composer install --no-dev --no-scripts

phpIPAM v1.9.0 relocated all HTML application code from the project root directory into the public sub-directory.

1. When upgrading from phpIPAM v1.8.x or below, update your webserver, reverse-proxy or load-balancer configuration to point to the new HTML location.

2. phpIPAM v1.9.0 relocated API controllers into functions/api/controllers, manually relocate any custom API controllers into the functions/api/controllers/custom sub-folder.

To upgrade your phpIPAM database to latest version choose from the multiple options presented on the browser upgrade page:

Open browser and follow upgrade procedure.

In case you have some problems you can manually import each MySQL update statement directly into the database. All upgrade queries are available by following the instructions in db/UPDATE.sql, start from the statement that contains a version higher than current.

Alternatively you can use the script below to output the queries needed to upgrade the MySQL database manually.

Assuming your old version is v1.5:

[root@ipam:/]$ cd /var/www/phpipam
[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ php functions/upgrade_queries.php 1.5

In case anything goes wrong the restore procedure is simple:

• Extract old code (restore version you had prior to upgrade)
• Copy over config.php
• Load old database backed up before starting upgrade

[root@ipam:/var/www/phpipam]$ mysql -h `database_host` -u `username` -p `database_name` <db/bkp/phpipam_migration_backup.db
Enter password: