Upgrading with an upgrade package

Learn how to use an upgrade package to upgrade GitHub Enterprise Server to a newer feature release.

In this article

Using the administrative shell, you can install an upgrade package with the ghe-upgrade utility.

If you're running back-to-back feature version upgrades, you must ensure background jobs are complete before proceeding with the following upgrade to a feature release. GitHub recommends waiting 24 hours between upgrades to allow any background upgrade tasks to complete before upgrading a second time. See "Overview of the upgrade process" and "Upgrade requirements."

While you can use a hotpatch to upgrade to the latest patch release within a feature series, you must use an upgrade package to upgrade to a newer feature release. For example, to upgrade from 2.11.10 to 2.12.4 you must use an upgrade package since these are in different feature series.

Upgrading a standalone instance using an upgrade package

Note

If you've enabled automatic update checks, you don't need to download the upgrade package and can use the file that was automatically downloaded. For more information, see "Enabling automatic update checks."

  1. SSH into your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. If your instance comprises multiple nodes, for example if high availability or geo-replication are configured, SSH into the primary node. If you use a cluster, you can SSH into any node. Replace HOSTNAME with the hostname for your instance, or the hostname or IP address of a node. For more information, see "Accessing the administrative shell (SSH)."

    Shell
    ssh -p 122 admin@HOSTNAME

  2. Browse to the GitHub Enterprise Server Releases page. Next to the release you are upgrading to, click Download, then click the Upgrading tab. Select the appropriate platform and copy the URL for the upgrade package (.pkg file).

  3. Download the upgrade package to your GitHub Enterprise Server instance using curl:

    admin@HOSTNAME:~$ curl -L -O UPGRADE-PKG-URL

  4. Enable maintenance mode and wait for all active processes to complete on the GitHub Enterprise Server instance. See "Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode."

    Note

    When upgrading the primary node in a high availability configuration, the instance should already be in maintenance mode if you are following the instructions in "Upgrading the primary node with an upgrade package."

  5. Run the ghe-upgrade command using the package file name:

    admin@HOSTNAME:~$ ghe-upgrade GITHUB-UPGRADE.pkg
*** verifying upgrade package signature...

  6. Confirm that you'd like to continue with the upgrade and restart after the package signature verifies. The new root filesystem writes to the secondary partition and the instance automatically restarts in maintenance mode:

    *** applying update...
This package will upgrade your installation to version VERSION-NUMBER
Current root partition: /dev/xvda1 [VERSION-NUMBER]
Target root partition:  /dev/xvda2
Proceed with installation? [y/N]

  7. Optionally, during an upgrade to a feature release, you can monitor the status of database migrations using the ghe-migrations utility. See "Command-line utilities."

  8. After the instance restarts, the upgrade will continue in the background. You cannot unset maintenance mode until the process completes.

    To check the status of background jobs, use the ghe-check-background-upgrade-jobs utility. If you're running back-to-back upgrades, you must ensure background jobs are complete before proceeding with the following upgrade to a feature release. To use this utility with GitHub Enterprise Server 3.11, your instance must run version 3.11.1 or later. See "Command-line utilities."

    To monitor progress of the configuration run, read the output in /data/user/common/ghe-config.log. For example, you can tail the log by running the following command:

    tail -f /data/user/common/ghe-config.log

  9. Optionally, after the upgrade, validate the upgrade by configuring an IP exception list to allow access to a specified list of IP addresses. See "Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode."

  10. For single node upgrades, perform any post-upgrade tasks including disabling maintenance mode so users can use your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

    Note

    After you upgrade an instance in a high availability configuration, you should remain in maintenance mode until you have upgraded all of the replica nodes and replication is current. See "Upgrading additional nodes with an upgrade package."

Upgrading an instance with multiple nodes using an upgrade package

To upgrade an instance that comprises multiple nodes using an upgrade package, you must upgrade the primary node, then upgrade any additional nodes.

Upgrading the primary node with an upgrade package

Warning

When replication is stopped, if the primary fails, any work from before the replica is upgraded and the replication begins again will be lost.

  1. On the primary node, enable maintenance mode and wait for all active processes to complete. See "Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode."

  2. Connect to the replica node over SSH as the admin user on port 122:

    ssh -p 122 admin@REPLICA_HOST

  3. To stop replication on all nodes, run ghe-repl-stop on each node.

  4. To upgrade the primary node, follow the instructions in "Upgrading a standalone instance using an upgrade package."

Upgrading additional nodes with an upgrade package

  1. Upgrade the node by following the instructions in "Upgrading a standalone instance using an upgrade package."

  2. Connect to the replica node over SSH as the admin user on port 122:

    ssh -p 122 admin@REPLICA_HOST

  3. Verify the upgrade by running:

    ghe-version

  4. On the replica node, to start replication, run ghe-repl-start.

  5. On the replica node, to make sure replication services are running correctly, run ghe-repl-status. This command will return OK for all services when a successful replication is in progress and the replica has upgraded. If the command returns Replication is not running, the replication may still be starting. Wait about one minute before running ghe-repl-status again.

    Notes:

    • While the resync is in progress ghe-repl-status may indicate that replication is behind. For example, you may see the following message.

      CRITICAL: git replication is behind the primary by more than 1007 repositories and/or gists

    • If GitHub Actions is enabled on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, you may see a message like the following. This message is expected when replication is paused due to maintenance mode being set on the primary appliance. Once maintenance mode is unset, this message should be resolved.

      CRITICAL: mssql replication is down, didn't find Token_Configuration!

    If ghe-repl-status did not return OK, and the explanation isn't listed in the note above, contact GitHub Enterprise Support. For more information, see "Contacting GitHub Support."

  6. Repeat the steps above for each additional node.

  7. After you have upgraded the last replica node and the resync is complete, disable maintenance mode so users can use your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.