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Version: 1.4

Upgrade

All components in Elemental are managed using Kubernetes. Below is how to use Kubernetes approaches to upgrade the components.

Elemental node upgrade​

Elemental nodes are upgraded with the Elemental Operator. Refer to the Elemental Operator documentation for complete information.

Upgrade can be achieve either with CLI or UI:

Upgrade via command line interface​

There are two ways of selecting nodes for upgrading. Via a cluster target, which will match ALL nodes in a cluster that matches our selector or via node selector, which will match nodes based on the node labels. Node selector allows us to be more targeted with the upgrade while cluster selector just selects all the nodes in a matched cluster.

Updating an existing ManagedOSImage is ineffective.
Once a version upgrade is completed on all targeted clusters, you can safely delete the ManagedOSImage and create a new one to trigger a new upgrade.

info

From version 1.5.0 of the Elemental Operator, the ManagedOSImage is an editable resource and can be used to reconcile a desired OS image or image version to all targeted clusters.

You can target nodes for an upgrade via a clusterTarget by setting it to the cluster name that you want to upgrade. All nodes in a cluster that matches that name will match and be upgraded.

upgrade-cluster-target.yaml
apiVersion: elemental.cattle.io/v1beta1
kind: ManagedOSImage
metadata:
name: my-upgrade
namespace: fleet-default
spec:
# Set to the new Elemental version you would like to upgrade to or track the latest tag
osImage: "registry.suse.com/suse/sle-micro/5.5:latest"
clusterTargets:
- clusterName: my-cluster

Selecting source for upgrade​

Just specify an OCI image on the osImage field

upgrade-cluster-target.yaml
apiVersion: elemental.cattle.io/v1beta1
kind: ManagedOSImage
metadata:
name: my-upgrade
namespace: fleet-default
spec:
# Set to the new Elemental version you would like to upgrade to or track the latest tag
osImage: "registry.suse.com/suse/sle-micro/5.5:latest"
clusterTargets:
- clusterName: my-cluster
Warning

If both osImage and ManagedOSVersion are defined in the same ManagedOSImage be aware that osImage takes precedence.

Managing available versions​

An ManagedOSVersionChannel resource can be created in a Kubernetes cluster where the Elemental operator is installed to synchronize available versions for upgrades.

It has a syncer in order to generate ManagedOSVersion automatically. Currently, we provide a json syncer and a custom one.

This syncer will fetch a json from url and parse it into valid ManagedOSVersion resources.

managed-os-version-json
apiVersion: elemental.cattle.io/v1beta1
kind: ManagedOSVersionChannel
metadata:
name: elemental-versions
namespace: fleet-default
spec:
options:
URI: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rancher/elemental-docs/main/examples/upgrade/versions.json"
Timeout: "1m"
type: json

In both cases the file that the operator expects to parse is a json file with the versions on it as follows

versions.json
[
{
"metadata": {
"name": "my-flavor-v0.1.0"
},
"spec": {
"version": "v0.1.0",
"type": "container",
"metadata": {
"upgradeImage": "foo/bar-os:v0.1.0-myflavor",
"displayName": "Foo Bar OS - My Flavor"
}
}
},
{
"metadata": {
"name": "my-flavor-v0.1.0-iso"
},
"spec": {
"version": "v0.1.0",
"type": "iso",
"metadata": {
"uri": "foo/bar-iso:v0.1.0-myflavor",
"displayName": "Foo Bar ISO - My Flavor"
}
}
}
]

Upgrade via user interface​

To upgrade via the UI, you have to go in the Elemental Advanced menu, then click on Update Groups.

Choose a name, select clusters to target and choose between the two upgrade ways:

Elemental Upgrade Menu

In this case, a OS Version Channels is used to auto populated OS Versions resources.

The channel bellow is provide by us but you can bring your own channel as well.

See section Managing available versions to understand how the ManagedOSVersion are managed.

Create OS Version Channel

After a short syncing time, you will see your OS Versions appears in the OS Versions menu.

Elemental OS Version menu

Finally, you can select the OS Versions when you create your Upgrade Group according to the following screenshot:

Select OS Version in Upgrade Group

Click on the Create button to start the upgrade process, if you have multiple nodes, the upgrade will be done sequentially node by node.