v2.25 Preview Preview release - not for production v2024.2 LTS Stable release with long-term support v2024.1 STS Stable release with standard-term support v2.20 LTS Stable release with long-term support Unsupported versions

Prepare to upgrade a universe

Review changes that may affect your automation

Upgrade the operating system

If your universe is running on a deprecated OS, you need to update your OS before you can upgrade to the next major release of YugabyteDB. Refer to Patch and upgrade the Linux operating system.

cron-based universes

cron and root-level systemd have been deprecated in favor of user-level systemd with node agent for management of universe nodes.

In particular, cron-based universes will no longer be supported in YugabyteDB Anywhere v2025.2 (LTS release planned for end of 2025) and later. Before you will be able to upgrade to v2025.2 or later, all your universes must be using systemd. YugabyteDB Anywhere will automatically upgrade universes that use a cloud provider configuration to systemd.

However, on-premises cron-based universes must be upgraded manually. To do this, in YugabyteDB Anywhere v2024.2.2 or later, navigate to the universe and choose Actions>Upgrade to Systemd.

Node agent

YugabyteDB Anywhere v2025.2 (LTS release planned for end of 2025) and later require universes have node agent running on their nodes. Before you will be able to upgrade to v2025.2 or later, all your universes must be using node agent.

YugabyteDB Anywhere will attempt to automatically update universes. If it is unable to update a universe, make sure the universe nodes satisfy the prerequisites and re-try the install by clicking Actions>Install Node Agent.

Transparent hugepages

Transparent hugepages (THP) should be enabled on nodes for optimal performance. If you have on-premises universes with legacy provisioning where THP are not enabled, you can update THP settings by following the node patching procedure; THP settings are automatically updated in step 3 when re-provisioning the node.

Review major changes in previous YugabyteDB releases

For YugabyteDB upgrades in YugabyteDB Anywhere

You can only upgrade from a stable version to another stable version, or from a preview version to another preview version. Optionally, you can set a runtime flag yb.skip_version_checks, to skip all YugabyteDB version checks during upgrades. For more information, contact Yugabyte Support.

Before starting the upgrade, review the following major changes in previous YugabyteDB releases. Depending on the upgrade you are planning, you may need to make changes to your automation.

Upgrading from versions earlier than v2.16.0

The YB Controller (YBC) service was introduced in v2.16.0 for all universes (except Kubernetes), and is required for YugabyteDB Anywhere v2.16.0 and later.

YBC is used to manage backup and restore, providing faster full backups, and introduces support for incremental backups.

Impacts

  • Firewall ports - update your firewall rules to allow incoming TCP traffic on port 18018, which is used by YBC, for all nodes in a universe.

  • On-premises provider - if you use on-premises providers with manually-provisioned nodes, update your current procedures for manually provisioning instances to accommodate YBC. This includes the following:

  • OS patching procedure - for universes created using an on-premises provider with manually-provisioned nodes, if your OS patching procedures involve re-installing YugabyteDB software on a node, you will need to update those procedures to accommodate YBC.

Upgrading from versions earlier than v2.18.0

YBC was introduced for Kubernetes clusters in v2.18.0. Refer to Upgrading from versions earlier than v2.16.0.

Upgrading from versions earlier than v2.18.2

The YugabyteDB Anywhere Node Agent was introduced for all universes in v2.18.2. Node agent is an RPC service running on a YugabyteDB node, and is used to manage communication between YugabyteDB Anywhere and the nodes in universes. Except for Day 0 tasks during initial installation, YugabyteDB Anywhere no longer uses SSH and SCP to manage nodes; instead, YugabyteDB Anywhere connects to the Node agent process listening on port 9070, and performs all its management via this secure connection. For more information, refer to the Node agent FAQ.

Impacts

  • Firewall ports - update your firewall rules to allow incoming TCP traffic on port 9070 for all nodes in a universe. YugabyteDB Anywhere listens to node agents on port 443.

  • On-premises provider - if you use on-premises providers with manually-provisioned nodes, you will need to update your current procedures for manually provisioning instances to include installing node agent. Refer to Install node agent.

  • OS patching procedure - for universes created using an on-premises provider with manually-provisioned nodes, if your OS patching procedures involve re-installing YugabyteDB software on a node, you will need to update those procedures to accommodate node agent.