Drupal 7 to Drupal 10/11 Migration

Drupal 7 to Drupal 10/11 Site Migration

Drupal 7 reached EOL in January 2025. There is no direct upgrade path — this is a full migration. Drupal 7 and Drupal 10 are architecturally different systems: D7 doesn't use Composer, OOP, Symfony components. Content is migrated via Migrate API, code is rewritten.

Migration Strategies

Migrate API (recommended) — content is migrated programmatically from D7 database to D10. Configured migrations can be run repeatedly until switchover day, minimizing downtime.

Manual content migration — for small sites (< 100 nodes) export via Views + import via Migrate or manual copy. Faster to setup, longer to execute.

Big bang — complete D7 shutdown, D10 setup, migration. Downtime from hours to days.

D7 Site Analysis

# List active D7 modules
drush pm-list --status=enabled --type=module

# Node types and counts
drush sql-query "SELECT type, COUNT(*) FROM node GROUP BY type"

# Database size
drush sql-query "SELECT table_name, ROUND(((data_length + index_length) / 1024 / 1024), 2) AS 'MB' FROM information_schema.TABLES WHERE table_schema = DATABASE() ORDER BY (data_length + index_length) DESC"

# Custom modules
ls sites/all/modules/custom/

D10 Site Setup with Migrate API

On new D10 server:

composer create-project drupal/recommended-project drupal10-site
cd drupal10-site

composer require drupal/migrate_plus drupal/migrate_tools \
    drupal/migrate_upgrade drupal/migrate_source_csv

drush en migrate migrate_plus migrate_tools migrate_upgrade -y

Connect D7 as additional database in settings.php:

$databases['migrate']['default'] = [
    'driver'   => 'mysql',
    'database' => 'drupal7_db',
    'username' => 'db_user',
    'password' => 'db_pass',
    'host'     => '127.0.0.1',
    'port'     => '3306',
    'prefix'   => '',
];

Generating Migrations

# Auto-generate migration configurations from D7
drush migrate:upgrade --legacy-db-key=migrate --legacy-root=/path/to/d7/files

# View what was generated
drush migrate:status

Migrate Upgrade creates YAML configs for: users, roles, taxonomy vocabularies, terms, content types, fields, nodes, media files, blocks, menus.

Migration Execution Order

Dependencies matter — can't migrate nodes before taxonomy and files:

# 1. Configuration (roles, content types, fields)
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_user_role
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_node_type
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_field
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_field_instance

# 2. Taxonomy vocabularies
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_taxonomy_vocabulary
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_taxonomy_term

# 3. Users
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_user

# 4. Files
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_file

# 5. Content (nodes)
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_node_complete

# 6. Menus and blocks
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_menu
drush migrate:import upgrade_d7_block

Problem Areas

CCK/Field API — D7 CCK fields migrate well. Field Collection (D7 equivalent of Paragraphs) — no direct support, needs custom migrate.

composer require drupal/migrate_field_collection

Views — Views 3 (D7) migrates partially. Complex views with relationships need recreation.

Custom D7 modules — need full rewrite: D7 uses procedural code, hook_schema, hook_menu. D10 — classes, annotations, routes via YAML.

Media files — migrate files from D7 filesystem:

# Configuration for copying files
source:
  plugin: d7_file
  source_base_path: 'https://old-d7-site.com'  # or local path

process:
  uri:
    plugin: file_copy
    source:
      - '@source_path'
      - 'public://'

Rewriting Custom Modules

// D7 (procedural)
function mymodule_menu() {
    return [
        'admin/config/mymodule' => [
            'title' => 'My Module Settings',
            'page callback' => 'drupal_get_form',
            'page arguments' => ['mymodule_settings_form'],
        ],
    ];
}

// D10 (OOP + YAML routes)
// mymodule.routing.yml:
// mymodule.settings:
//   path: '/admin/config/mymodule'
//   defaults:
//     _form: '\Drupal\mymodule\Form\SettingsForm'

Delta Migration: Minimizing Downtime

# Primary migration (hours/days before switchover)
drush migrate:import --all

# On switchover day:
# 1. Enable maintenance mode on D7
# 2. Update changed content
drush migrate:import --all --update

# 3. Switch DNS to D10
# 4. Disable maintenance mode on D10

Timeline