Upgrade to CockroachDB v19.1

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. Verify that you can upgrade

To upgrade to a new version, you must first be on a production release of the previous version. The release does not need to be the latest production release of the previous version, but it must be a production release rather than a testing release (alpha/beta).

Therefore, if you are upgrading from v2.0 to v19.1, or from a testing release (alpha/beta) of v2.1 to v19.1:

1. First upgrade to a production release of v2.1. Be sure to complete all the steps.

2. Then return to this page and perform a second rolling upgrade to v19.1.

If you are upgrading from any production release of v2.1, or from any earlier v19.1 release, you do not have to go through intermediate releases; continue to step 2.

Step 2. 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. Make sure there are no schema changes in progress. Schema changes are complex operations that involve coordination across nodes and can increase the potential for unexpected behavior during an upgrade.

   • To check for ongoing schema changes, use SHOW JOBS or check the Jobs page in the Admin UI.

3. Verify the overall health of your cluster using the Admin UI. On the Cluster Overview:

   • Under Node Status, make sure all nodes that should be live are listed as such. If any nodes are unexpectedly listed as suspect or dead, identify why the nodes are offline and either restart them or decommission them before beginning your upgrade. If there are dead and non-decommissioned nodes in your cluster, it will not be possible to finalize the upgrade (either automatically or manually).
   • Under Replication Status, make sure there are 0 under-replicated and unavailable ranges. Otherwise, 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 under-replication and/or unavailability before beginning your upgrade.
   • In the Node List:
     • Make sure all nodes are on the same version. If any nodes are behind, upgrade them to the cluster's current version first, and then start this process over.
     • Make sure capacity and memory usage are reasonable for each node. Nodes must be able to tolerate some increase in case the new version uses more resources for your workload. Also go to Metrics > Dashboard: Hardware and make sure CPU percent is reasonable across the cluster. If there's not enough headroom on any of these metrics, consider adding nodes to your cluster before beginning your upgrade.

4. 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 to troubleshoot the issues.

5. 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 3. Decide how the upgrade will be finalized

By default, after all nodes are running the new version, the upgrade process will be auto-finalized. This will enable certain features and performance improvements introduced in v19.1. However, it will no longer be possible to perform a downgrade to v2.1. In the event of a catastrophic failure or corruption, the only option will be to start a new cluster using the old binary and then restore from one of the backups created prior to performing the upgrade. For this reason, we recommend disabling auto-finalization so you can monitor the stability and performance of the upgraded cluster before finalizing the upgrade, but note that you will need to follow all of the subsequent directions, including the manual finalization in step 5:

1. Upgrade to v2.1, if you haven't already.

2. Start the cockroach sql shell against any node in the cluster.

3. Set the cluster.preserve_downgrade_option cluster setting:

   > SET CLUSTER SETTING cluster.preserve_downgrade_option = '2.1';
   

   It is only possible to set this setting to the current cluster version.

Features that require upgrade finalization

When upgrading from v2.1 to v19.1, certain features and performance improvements will be enabled only after finalizing the upgrade, including but not limited to:

• Cascading replication zones: After finalization, replication zones will inherit empty values from their parent. For example, if the replication zone for a table is not explicitly set with num_replicas, it will inherit that value from its direct parent, whether that's the .default replication zone from the entire cluster or the replication zone for the database containing the table.
  
• Table statistics generation: After finalization, CockroachDB will generate table statistics automatically as tables are updated, and you will be able to manually generate table statistics using the CREATE STATISTICS statement.
• Load-based splitting: After finalization, CockroachDB will automatically split frequently accessed keys into smaller ranges to optimize your cluster’s performance.

Step 4. 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 like systemd, use this command:

   $ pkill cockroach
   

   If you are using systemd as the process manager, use this command to stop a node without systemd restarting it:

   $ systemctl stop <systemd config filename>
   

   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-v19.1.11.darwin-10.9-amd64.tgz
   

   $ tar -xzf cockroach-v19.1.11.darwin-10.9-amd64.tgz
   

   $ curl https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-v19.1.11.linux-amd64.tgz
   

   $ tar -xzf cockroach-v19.1.11.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-v19.1.11.darwin-10.9-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/cockroach
   

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

   $ cp -i cockroach-v19.1.11.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/cockroach
   

5. Start the node to have it rejoin the cluster.

   Without a process manager like systemd, re-run the cockroach start command that you used to start the node initially, for example:

   $ cockroach start \
   --certs-dir=certs \
   --advertise-addr=<node address> \
   --join=<node1 address>,<node2 address>,<node3 address>
   

   If you are using systemd as the process manager, run this command to start the node:

   $ systemctl start <systemd config filename>
   

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

   Note:

   To access the Admin UI for a secure cluster, create a user with a password. Then open a browser and go to https://<any node's external IP address>:8080. On accessing the Admin UI, you will see a Login screen, where you will need to enter your username and password.

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 5. Finish the upgrade

If you disabled auto-finalization in step 3, monitor the stability and performance of your cluster for as long as you require to feel comfortable with the upgrade (generally at least a day). If during this time you decide to roll back the upgrade, repeat the rolling restart procedure with the old binary.

Once you are satisfied with the new version, re-enable auto-finalization:

1. Start the cockroach sql shell against any node in the cluster.

2. Re-enable auto-finalization:

   > RESET CLUSTER SETTING cluster.preserve_downgrade_option;
   

Step 6. Troubleshooting

After the upgrade has finalized (whether manually or automatically), it is no longer possible to downgrade to the previous release. If you are experiencing problems, we therefore recommend that you:

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.

In the event of catastrophic failure or corruption, the only option will be to start a new cluster using the old binary and then restore from one of the backups created prior to performing the upgrade.

See also

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