Upgrading

You can create a backup and upgrade ArangoDB in-place, but downgrading is only possible with the backup or by dumping and restoring all data

Upgrade methods

There are two main ways to upgrade ArangoDB:

  • In-Place upgrade: when the installed ArangoDB package is replaced with a new one, and the new server executable is started on the existing data directory.

    The database files typically require to be upgraded when you upgrade to a consecutive release, for example, from 3.9 to 3.10. The database files cannot be downgraded again. Take a backup before upgrading if you want to be able to return to the old version of your data and ArangoDB.

  • Logical upgrade: when the data is exported from the old ArangoDB version using arangodump and then restored in the new ArangoDB version using arangorestore.

    Depending on the size of your database, this strategy can be more time consuming, but might be necessary under some circumstances.

Before the upgrade

Before upgrading, it is recommended to:

  • Check the CHANGELOG and the list of incompatible changes for API or other changes in the new version of ArangoDB, and make sure your applications can deal with them.
  • As an extra precaution, and as a requirement if you want to downgrade, you might want to:
    • Take a backup of the old ArangoDB database using arangodump, as well as
    • Copy the entire “old” data directory to a safe place, after stopping the ArangoDB Server running on it (if you run a Cluster, you will need to take a copy of their data directories, from all involved machines, after stopping all the running ArangoDB processes).
    • Keep a copy of all ArangoDB package files (executables, configuration files, bundled scripts, etc.) in case you want to return to the old version of ArangoDB.

Upgrade paths

  • It is always possible to upgrade to patch versions of the same general availability (GA) release, i.e from x.y.W to x.y.Z, where Z > W.

    Examples:

    • Upgrading from 3.9.0 to 3.9.1 or (directly to) 3.9.3 is supported.
    • Upgrading from 3.9.1 to 3.9.2 or (directly to) 3.9.3 is supported.

  • It is possible to upgrade between two different consecutive GA releases, but it is not officially supported to upgrade if the two GA releases are not consecutive (in this case, you first have to upgrade to all intermediate releases).

    Examples:

    • Upgrading from 3.8 to 3.9 is supported.
    • Upgrading from 3.9 to 3.10 is supported.
    • Upgrading from 3.8 directly to 3.10 is not officially supported! The officially supported upgrade path in this case is 3.8 to 3.9, and then 3.9 to 3.10.

    Before upgrading between two consecutive GA releases, it is highly recommended to first upgrade the previous GA release to its latest patch version.

    Examples:

    • To upgrade from 3.8 to 3.9, first upgrade your 3.8 installation to the latest 3.8 version, for example, from 3.8.2 to 3.8.9 and then to 3.9.x.
    • To upgrade from 3.9 to 3.10, first upgrade your 3.9 installation to the latest 3.9 version, for example, from 3.9.5 to 3.9.10 and then to 3.10.x.

Additional notes regarding rolling upgrades

In addition to the paragraph above, rolling upgrades via the tool Starter are supported, as documented in Upgrading Starter Deployments.

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