Upgrade GitHub Enterprise to get the latest features and security updates.

In this guide

Preparing to upgrade

  1. Determine an upgrade strategy and choose a version to upgrade to. For more information, see "Upgrade requirements."

  2. Create a fresh backup of your primary instance with the GitHub Enterprise Backup Utilities. For more information, see the GitHub Enterprise Backup Utilities README.md file.

  3. If you are upgrading using an upgrade package, schedule a maintenance window for GitHub Enterprise end users. If you are using a hotpatch, maintenance mode is not required.

    Note: The maintenance window depends on the type of upgrade you perform. Upgrades using a hotpatch usually don't require a maintenance window. Sometimes a reboot is required, which you can perform at a later time. Following the versioning scheme of MAJOR.FEATURE.PATCH, patch releases using an upgrade package typically require less than five minutes of downtime. Feature releases that include data migrations take longer depending on storage performance and the amount of data that's migrated. For more information, see "Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode."

  4. Run a migration script before completing the upgrade if you're upgrading to GitHub Enterprise 2.11 or later from either 2.9 or 2.10. For more information, see "Migrating audit logs to GitHub Enterprise 2.11 or later."

Taking a snapshot

A snapshot is a checkpoint of a virtual machine (VM) at a point in time. We highly recommend taking a snapshot before upgrading your virtual machine so that if an upgrade fails, you can revert your VM back to the snapshot.

There are two types of snapshots:

  • VM snapshots save your entire VM state, including user data and configuration data. This snapshot method requires a large amount of disk space and is time consuming.

  • Data disk snapshots only save your user data.We recommend using this snapshot method for the upgrade process.

    Notes:

    • Some platforms don't allow you to take a snapshot of just your data disk. For these platforms, you'll need to take a snapshot of the entire VM.
    • If your hypervisor does not support full VM snapshots, you should take a snapshot of the root disk and data disk in quick succession.

Platform Snapshot method Snapshot documentation URL
Amazon AWS Disk https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ebs-creating-snapshot.html
Azure VM https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/backup-azure-vms/
Hyper-V VM https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd851843.aspx
VMware VM https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp#com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc_50/GUID-9720B104-9875-4C2C-A878-F1C351A4F3D8.html
XenServer VM http://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xencenter/6-2/xs-xc-vms-snapshots.html

Upgrading with a hotpatch

You can upgrade GitHub Enterprise to the latest patch release using a hotpatch, which does not require a maintenance window and usually does not require a reboot. You can use hotpatching to upgrade to a newer patch release, but not a feature release. For example, you can upgrade from 2.10.1 to 2.10.5 because they are in the same feature series, but not from 2.10.9 to 2.11.0 because they are in a different feature series. You can use the administrative shell to install a hotpatch with the ghe-upgrade utility. For more information, see "Upgrade requirements."

Upgrading a single appliance with a hotpatch

Installing a hotpatch using the administrative shell

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 instance.

    ssh -p 122 admin@HOSTNAME

  2. Browse to the GitHub Enterprise Releases page. Next to the release you are upgrading to, click Download, then click the Upgrading tab. Copy the URL for the upgrade hotpackage (.hpkg file).

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

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

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

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

  5. If a reboot is required for updates for kernel, MySQL, Elasticsearch or other programs, the hotpatch upgrade script notifies you.

Upgrading an appliance that has replica instances using a hotpatch

Appliances configured for high-availability and geo-replication use replica instances in addition to primary instances. To upgrade these appliances, you'll need to upgrade both the primary instance and all replica instances, one at a time.

Upgrading the primary instance
  1. Upgrade the primary instance by following the instructions in "Installing a hotpatch using the administrative shell."
Upgrading a replica instance

Note: If you're running multiple replica instances as part of geo-replication, repeat this procedure for each replica instance, one at a time.

  1. Upgrade the replica instance by following the instructions in "Installing a hotpatch using the administrative shell." If you are using multiple replicas for Geo-replication, you must repeat this procedure to upgrade each replica one at a time.

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

    ssh -p 122 admin@replica-host

  3. Verify the upgrade by running:

    cat /etc/github/enterprise-release

    RELEASE_VERSION should reflect the version you have upgraded to.

Reverting a hotpatch installation

If a hotpatch installation introduces any problems or unexpected behavior, you can use the ghe-upgrade command to install a regular upgrade package (.pkg) of the previous version.

Upgrading with an upgrade package

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. For more information, see "Upgrade requirements."

Upgrading a single appliance with 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 instance.

    ssh -p 122 admin@HOSTNAME

  2. Browse to the GitHub Enterprise 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 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 instance. For more information, see "Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode."

    Note: When upgrading the primary appliance in a High Availability configuration, the appliance should already be in maintenance mode if you are following the instructions in "Upgrading the primary instance."

  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. For single appliance upgrades, disable maintenance mode so users can use your GitHub Enterprise instance.

    Note: When upgrading appliances in a High Availability configuration you should remain in maintenance mode until you have upgraded all of the replicas and replication is current. For more information, see "Upgrading a replica instance."

Upgrading an appliance that has replica instances using an upgrade package

Appliances configured for high-availability and geo-replication use replica instances in addition to primary instances. To upgrade these appliances, you'll need to upgrade both the primary instance and all replica instances, one at a time.

Upgrading the primary instance

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

  1. On the primary instance, enable maintenance mode and wait for all active processes to complete. For more information, see "Enabling maintenance mode."

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

    ssh -p 122 admin@replica-host

  3. On the replica instance, or on all replica instances if you're running multiple replica instances as part of geo-replication, run ghe-repl-stop to stop replication.

  4. Upgrade the primary instance by following the instructions in "Upgrading a single appliance with an upgrade package."
Upgrading a replica instance

Note: If you're running multiple replica instances as part of geo-replication, repeat this procedure for each replica instance, one at a time.

  1. Upgrade the replica instance by following the instructions in "Upgrading a single appliance with an upgrade package." If you are using multiple replicas for Geo-replication, you must repeat this procedure to upgrade each replica one at a time.

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

    ssh -p 122 admin@replica-host

  3. Verify the upgrade by running:

    cat /etc/github/enterprise-release

    RELEASE_VERSION should reflect the version you have upgraded to.

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

  5. On the replica instance, 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.

    Note: While the resync is in progress ghe-repl-status may return expected messages indicating that replication is behind. For example: CRITICAL: git replication is behind the primary by more than 1007 repositories and/or gists

    If ghe-repl-status didn't return OK, follow the steps below to manually start the replication.

    1. On the replica instance, run ghe-repl-setup <primary-instance-ip> again.

    2. On the replica instance, to start replication, run ghe-repl-start.

    3. On the replica instance, 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.

  6. When you have completed upgrading the last replica, and the resync is complete, disable maintenance mode so users can use your GitHub Enterprise instance.

Restoring from a failed upgrade

If an upgrade fails or is interrupted, you should revert your instance back to its previous state. The process for completing this depends on whether you're using a VM snapshot or a data disk snapshot.

Using a data disk snapshot

  1. Enable maintenance mode and wait for all active processes to complete on the GitHub Enterprise instance. For more information, see "Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode."

  2. To restore your boot partition, run ghe-rollback-rootfs. This command only restores the boot partition and will turn the VM off when it's finished. For more information, see "Command line utilities."

  3. To restore your data partition, revert to your previous user data snapshot.
  4. After the restoration finishes, start your VM.

Using a VM snapshot

If you created a whole VM snapshot, refer to the instructions for your platform to restore your VM snapshot.