Update

Prerequisites

Check the Laravel upgrade docs for release notes.

Update

Using Composer

I haven’t done this manually yet.

Using Laravel Shift

I had a good experience using Laravel Shift to update from 4.2 to 5.2. It automates some of the easier tasks, but you still need to make manual changes.

After the Shift completes, run this to update Laravel:

composer install

Maintenance mode

See Laravel: Docs: Configuration: Maintenance Mode.