Upgrade a Cluster's Version

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Because of CockroachDB's multi-active availability design, you can perform a "rolling upgrade" of your CockroachDB cluster. This means that you can upgrade nodes one at a time without interrupting the cluster's overall health and operations.

Step 1. Prepare to upgrade

Before starting the upgrade, complete the following steps.

1. Make sure your cluster is behind a load balancer, or your clients are configured to talk to multiple nodes. If your application communicates with a single node, stopping that node to upgrade its CockroachDB binary will cause your application to fail.

2. Verify the cluster's overall health by running the cockroach node status command against any node in the cluster.

   In the response:

   • If any nodes that should be live are not listed, identify why the nodes are offline and restart them before begining your upgrade.
   • Make sure the build field shows the same version of CockroachDB for all nodes. If any nodes are behind, upgrade them to the cluster's current version first, and then start this process over.
   • Make sure ranges_unavailable and ranges_underreplicated show 0 for all nodes. If there are unavailable or underreplicated ranges in your cluster, performing a rolling upgrade increases the risk that ranges will lose a majority of their replicas and cause cluster unavailability. Therefore, it's important to identify and resolve the cause of range unavailability and underreplication before beginning your upgrade.

3. Capture the cluster's current state by running the cockroach debug zip command against any node in the cluster. If the upgrade does not go according to plan, the captured details will help you and Cockroach Labs troubleshoot issues.

4. Back up the cluster. If the upgrade does not go according to plan, you can use the data to restore your cluster to its previous state.

Step 2. Perform the rolling upgrade

For each node in your cluster, complete the following steps.

1. Connect to the node.

2. Terminate the cockroach process.

   Without a process manager, use this command:

   $ pkill cockroach
   

   Then verify that the process has stopped:

   $ ps aux | grep cockroach
   

   Alternately, you can check the node's logs for the message server drained and shutdown completed.

3. Download and install the CockroachDB binary you want to use:

   Mac Linux

   $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v1.0.7.darwin-10.9-amd64.tgz
   

   $ tar -xzf cockroach-v1.0.7.darwin-10.9-amd64.tgz
   

   $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v1.0.7.linux-amd64.tgz
   

   $ tar -xzf cockroach-v1.0.7.linux-amd64.tgz
   

4. If you use cockroach in your $PATH, rename the outdated cockroach binary, and then move the new one into its place:

   Mac Linux

   i="$(which cockroach)"; mv "$i" "$i"_old
   

   $ cp -i cockroach-v1.0.7.darwin-10.9-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/cockroach
   

   i="$(which cockroach)"; mv "$i" "$i"_old
   

   $ cp -i cockroach-v1.0.7.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/cockroach
   

5. If you're running with a process manager, have the node rejoin the cluster by starting it.

   Without a process manager, use this command:

   $ cockroach start --join=[IP address of any other node] [other flags]
   

   [other flags] includes any flags you use to a start node, such as --host.

6. Verify the node has rejoined the cluster through its output to stdout or through the admin UI.

7. If you use cockroach in your $PATH, you can remove the old binary:

   $ rm /usr/local/bin/cockroach_old
   

   If you leave versioned binaries on your servers, you do not need to do anything.

8. Wait at least one minute after the node has rejoined the cluster, and then repeat these steps for the next node.

Step 3. Monitor the upgraded cluster

After upgrading all nodes in the cluster, monitor the cluster's stability and performance for at least one day.

If you experience any problems, follow these steps to troubleshoot and, if necessary, downgrade the cluster:

1. Run the cockroach debug zip command against any node in the cluster to capture your cluster's state.

2. Reach out for support from Cockroach Labs, sharing your debug zip.

3. If necessary, downgrade the cluster by repeating the rolling upgrade process, but this time switching each node back to the previous version in the 1.0.x series.

See Also

• View Node Details
• Collect Debug Information
• View Version Details
• Release notes for our latest version

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