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Upgrade Guide - ScyllaDB 5.2 to 5.4¶
This document is a step-by-step procedure for upgrading from ScyllaDB 5.2 to ScyllaDB 5.4, and rollback to version 5.2 if required.
This guide covers upgrading ScyllaDB on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Debian, and Ubuntu. See OS Support by Platform and Version for information about supported versions.
It also applies when using ScyllaDB official image on EC2, GCP, or Azure.
Before You Upgrade ScyllaDB¶
Upgrade Your Driver
If you’re using a ScyllaDB driver, upgrade the driver before you upgrade ScyllaDB. The latest two versions of each driver are supported.
Upgrade ScyllaDB Monitoring Stack
If you’re using the ScyllaDB Monitoring Stack, verify that your Monitoring Stack version supports the ScyllaDB version to which you want to upgrade. See ScyllaDB Monitoring Stack Support Matrix.
We recommend upgrading the Monitoring Stack to the latest version.
Check Feature Updates
See the ScyllaDB Release Notes for the latest updates. The Release Notes are published at the ScyllaDB Community Forum.
Note
DateTieredCompactionStrategy is removed in 5.4. Migrate to TimeWindowCompactionStrategy before you upgrade from 5.2 to 5.4
Note
In ScyllaDB 5.4, Raft-based consistent cluster management for existing deployments is enabled by default. If you want the consistent cluster management feature to be disabled in ScyllaDB 5.4, you must update the configuration before you upgrade from 5.2 to 5.4:
Set
consistent_cluster_management: falsein thescylla.yamlconfiguration file on each node in the cluster.Start the upgrade procedure.
Consistent cluster management cannot be disabled in version 5.4 if it was enabled in version 5.2 in one of the following ways:
Your cluster was created in version 5.2 with the default
consistent_cluster_management: trueconfiguration inscylla.yaml.You explicitly set
consistent_cluster_management: trueinscylla.yamlin an existing cluster in version 5.2.
Upgrade Procedure¶
A ScyllaDB upgrade is a rolling procedure that does not require full cluster shutdown. For each of the nodes in the cluster, serially (i.e., one node at a time), you will:
Check that the cluster’s schema is synchronized
Drain the node and backup the data
Backup the configuration file
Stop ScyllaDB
Download and install new ScyllaDB packages
Start ScyllaDB
Validate that the upgrade was successful
Apply the following procedure serially on each node. Do not move to the next node before validating that the node you upgraded is up and running the new version.
During the rolling upgrade, it is highly recommended:
Not to use the new 5.4 features.
Not to run administration functions, such as repairs, refresh, rebuild, or add or remove nodes. See sctool for suspending ScyllaDB Manager (only available for ScyllaDB Enterprise) scheduled or running repairs.
Not to apply schema changes.
After the upgrade, you need to verify that Raft was successfully initiated in your cluster. You can skip this step only in either of the following cases:
The
consistent_cluster_managementoption was enabled in a previous ScyllaDB version.You disabled the
consistent_cluster_managementoption before upgrading to 5.4, as described in the note in the Before You Upgrade ScyllaDB section.
Otherwise, as soon as every node has been upgraded to the new version, the cluster will start a procedure that initializes the Raft algorithm for consistent cluster metadata management. You must then verify that the Raft initialization procedure has successfully finished.
Upgrade Steps¶
Check the cluster schema¶
Make sure that all nodes have the schema synchronized before the upgrade. The upgrade procedure will fail if there is a schema disagreement between nodes.
nodetool describecluster
Drain the nodes and backup data¶
Before any major procedure, like an upgrade, it is recommended to backup all the data
to an external device. In ScyllaDB, backup is performed using the nodetool snapshot
command. For each node in the cluster, run the following command:
nodetool drain
nodetool snapshot
Take note of the directory name that nodetool gives you, and copy all the directories
having that name under /var/lib/scylla to an external backup device.
When the upgrade is completed on all nodes, remove the snapshot with the
nodetool clearsnapshot -t <snapshot> command to prevent running out of space.
Backup the configuration file¶
Back up the scylla.yaml configuration file and the ScyllaDB packages
in case you need to rollback the upgrade.
sudo cp -a /etc/scylla/scylla.yaml /etc/scylla/scylla.yaml.backup
sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list.d/scylla.list ~/scylla.list-backup
sudo cp -a /etc/scylla/scylla.yaml /etc/scylla/scylla.yaml.backup
sudo cp /etc/yum.repos.d/scylla.repo ~/scylla.repo-backup
Gracefully stop the node¶
sudo service scylla-server stop
Download and install the new release¶
Before upgrading, check what version you are running now using scylla --version.
You should take note of the current version in case you want to rollback the upgrade.
To upgrade ScyllaDB:
Install the new ScyllaDB version:
sudo apt-get clean all sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade scylla
Answer ‘y’ to the first two questions.
To upgrade ScyllaDB:
Update the ScyllaDB rpm repo to 5.4.
Install the new ScyllaDB version:
sudo yum clean all sudo yum update scylla\* -y
Note
If you are running a ScyllaDB official image (for EC2 AMI, GCP, or Azure), you need to:
Download and install the new ScyllaDB release for Ubuntu; see the Debian/Ubuntu tab above for instructions.
Update underlying OS packages.
See Upgrade ScyllaDB Image for details.
Start the node¶
sudo service scylla-server start
Validate¶
Check cluster status with
nodetool statusand make sure all nodes, including the one you just upgraded, are inUNstatus.Use
curl -X GET "http://localhost:10000/storage_service/scylla_release_version"to check the ScyllaDB version. Validate that the version matches the one you upgraded to.Check scylla-server log (by
journalctl _COMM=scylla) and/var/log/syslogto validate there are no new errors in the log.Check again after two minutes, to validate no new issues are introduced.
Once you are sure the node upgrade was successful, move to the next node in the cluster.
See Scylla Metrics Update - Scylla 5.2 to 5.4 for more information.
After Upgrading Every Node¶
This section applies to upgrades where Raft is initialized for the first time in the cluster, which in 5.4 happens by default.
You can skip this step only in either of the following cases:
The
consistent_cluster_managementoption was enabled in a previous ScyllaDB version (i.e., Raft was enabled in a version prior to 5.4).You disabled the
consistent_cluster_managementoption before upgrading to 5.4, as described in the note in the Before You Upgrade ScyllaDB section (i.e., you prevented Raft from being enabled in 5.4).
Validate Raft Setup¶
Enabling Raft causes the ScyllaDB cluster to start an internal Raft initialization procedure as soon as every node is upgraded to the new version. The goal of that procedure is to initialize data structures used by the Raft algorithm to consistently manage cluster-wide metadata, such as table schemas.
Assuming you performed the rolling upgrade procedure correctly (in particular, ensuring that the schema is synchronized on every step), and if there are no problems with cluster connectivity, that internal procedure should take a few seconds to finish. However, the procedure requires full cluster availability. If one of the nodes fails before the procedure finishes (for example, due to a hardware problem), the process may get stuck, which may prevent schema or topology changes in your cluster.
Therefore, following the rolling upgrade, you must verify that the internal Raft initialization procedure has finished successfully by checking the logs of every ScyllaDB node. If the process gets stuck, manual intervention is required.
Refer to the Verifying that the internal Raft upgrade procedure finished successfully section for instructions on verifying that the procedure was successful and proceeding if it gets stuck.
Rollback Procedure¶
Note
Execute the following commands one node at a time, moving to the next node only after the rollback procedure is completed successfully.
The following procedure describes a rollback from ScyllaDB 5.4.x to 5.2.y. Apply this procedure if an upgrade from 5.2 to 5.4 fails before completing on all nodes. Use this procedure only for nodes you upgraded to 5.4.
Warning
The rollback procedure can be applied only if some nodes have not been upgraded to 5.4 yet.As soon as the last node in the rolling upgrade procedure is started with 5.4, rollback becomes impossible. At that point, the only way to restore a cluster to 5.2 is by restoring it from backup.
ScyllaDB rollback is a rolling procedure that does not require full cluster shutdown.
For each of the nodes you rollback to 5.2, serially (i.e., one node at a time), you will:
Drain the node and stop Scylla
Retrieve the old ScyllaDB packages
Restore the configuration file
Reload systemd configuration
Restart ScyllaDB
Validate the rollback success
Apply the following procedure serially on each node. Do not move to the next node before validating that the rollback was successful and the node is up and running the old version.
Rollback Steps¶
Drain and gracefully stop the node¶
nodetool drain
nodetool snapshot
sudo service scylla-server stop
Restore and install the old release¶
Restore the 5.2 packages backed up during the upgrade.
sudo cp ~/scylla.list-backup /etc/apt/sources.list.d/scylla.list sudo chown root.root /etc/apt/sources.list.d/scylla.list sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/scylla.list
Install:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get remove scylla\* -y sudo apt-get install scylla
Answer ‘y’ to the first two questions.
Restore the 5.2 packages backed up during the upgrade procedure.
sudo cp ~/scylla.repo-backup /etc/yum.repos.d/scylla.repo sudo chown root.root /etc/yum.repos.d/scylla.repo sudo chmod 644 /etc/yum.repos.d/scylla.repo
Install:
sudo yum clean all sudo rm -rf /var/cache/yum sudo yum downgrade scylla-\*cqlsh -y sudo yum remove scylla-\*cqlsh -y sudo yum downgrade scylla\* -y sudo yum install scylla -y
Restore the configuration file¶
sudo rm -rf /etc/scylla/scylla.yaml
sudo cp /etc/scylla/scylla.yaml-backup /etc/scylla/scylla.yaml
Reload systemd configuration¶
You must reload the unit file if the systemd unit file is changed.
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Start the node¶
sudo service scylla-server start
Validate¶
Check the upgrade instructions above for validation. Once you are sure the node rollback is successful, move to the next node in the cluster.