Upgrade Longhorn Manager

It is recommended to create a Longhorn system backup before performing the upgrade. This ensures that all critical resources, such as volumes and backing images, are backed up and can be restored in case any issues arise.

Upgrading from v1.8.x

SUSE Storage only supports upgrading to v1.9 from v1.8.x. For other versions, please upgrade to v1.8.x first.

For airgap upgrades when SUSE Storage is installed as a Rancher app, you will need to modify the image names and remove the registry URL part.

For air-gapped upgrades when SUSE Storage is installed as a Rancher app, you will need to modify the image names and remove the registry URL part. For example, the image registry.example.com/longhorn/longhorn-manager:v1.9.1 is changed to longhorn/longhorn-manager:v1.9.1 in Longhorn images section. For more information, see the air gap installation steps here.

Preparing for the Upgrade

If SUSE Storage was installed using a Helm Chart, or if it was installed as Rancher catalog app, check to make sure the parameters in the default StorageClass were not changed. Changing the parameter of the default StorageClass might result in a chart upgrade failure. If you want to reconfigure the parameters in the StorageClass, you can copy the configuration of default StorageClass to create another StorageClass.

The current default StorageClass has the following parameters:

parameters:
  numberOfReplicas: <user specified replica count, 3 by default>
  staleReplicaTimeout: "30"
  fromBackup: ""
  baseImage: ""

Upgrade

Always back up volumes before upgrading. If anything goes wrong, you can restore the volume using the backup.

Upgrade as a Rancher Catalog App

To upgrade the SUSE Storage App, make sure which Rancher UI the existing SUSE Storage App was installed with. There are two Rancher UIs, one is the Cluster Manager (old UI), and the other one is the Cluster Explorer (new UI). The SUSE Storage App in different UIs considered as two different applications by Rancher. They cannot upgrade to each other. If you installed SUSE Storage in the Cluster Manager, you need to use the Cluster Manager to upgrade SUSE Storage to a newer version, and vice versa for the Cluster Explorer.

Because the Cluster Manager (old UI) is being deprecated, the instruction to migrate the existing SUSE Storage installation to the SUSE Storage chart in the Cluster Explorer (new UI) can be found here.

Different Rancher UIs screenshots.

The Cluster Manager (old UI)
The Cluster Explorer (new UI)

On Kubernetes clusters managed by Rancher 2.1 or newer, the steps to upgrade the catalog app longhorn-system are the similar to the installation steps.

Upgrade with Helm

Upgrading the SUSE Storage Helm chart involves updating your deployment to a newer version or switching between Longhorn community images and SUSE Storage images.

The general Helm command for upgrading is:

helm upgrade longhorn oci://dp.apps.rancher.io/charts/suse-storage \
  --namespace longhorn-system \
  --version <version> \ # Replace with the version you would like to upgrade to
  --set global.imagePullSecrets=<PULL_IMAGE_SECRET> \
  -f values.yaml

To create a secret, follow the AppCo documentation.

Or, if upgrading without a specific values.yaml file and only changing the version:

helm upgrade longhorn oci://dp.apps.rancher.io/charts/suse-storage \
  --namespace longhorn-system \
  --version <version> \ # Replace with the version you would like to upgrade to
  --set global.imagePullSecrets=<PULL_IMAGE_SECRET>

Upgrade Path: Refer to the official SUSE Storage upgrade documentation for specific version-to-version upgrade paths, prerequisites, and post-upgrade verification steps. This is important to ensure a smooth upgrade and data integrity.
Configuration Changes: If you have custom configurations, ensure you carry them over to the new chart version, merging with any default changes.

Upgrade with Fleet

Update the value of helm.version in the fleet YAML file of your GitOps repository.

helm:
  repo: https://charts.longhorn.io
  chart: longhorn
  version: v1.9.1 # Replace with the SUSE Storage version you would like to upgrade to
  releaseName: longhorn

Upgrade with Flux

Update the value of spec.chart.spec.version in the HelmRelease YAML file of your GitOps repository.

spec:
  chart:
    spec:
      chart: longhorn
      reconcileStrategy: ChartVersion
      sourceRef:
        kind: HelmRepository
        name: longhorn
      version: v1.9.1 # Replace with the SUSE Storage version you would like to upgrade to

Upgrade with Argo CD

Update the value of targetRevision in the Application YAML file of your GitOps repository.

spec:
  project: default
  sources:
    - chart: longhorn
      repoURL: https://charts.longhorn.io
      targetRevision: v1.9.1 # Replace with the SUSE Storage version you would like to upgrade to

Then wait for all the pods to become running and SUSE Storage UI working. For example:

 $ kubectl -n longhorn-system get pod
 NAME                                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS      AGE
 engine-image-ei-4dbdb778-nw88l                        1/1     Running   0             4m29s
 longhorn-ui-b7c844b49-jn5g6                           1/1     Running   0             75s
 longhorn-manager-z2p8h                                1/1     Running   0             71s
 instance-manager-b34d5db1fe1e2d52bcfb308be3166cfc     1/1     Running   0             65s
 longhorn-driver-deployer-6bd59c9f76-jp6pg             1/1     Running   0             75s
 engine-image-ei-df38d2e5-zccq5                        1/1     Running   0             65s
 csi-snapshotter-588457fcdf-h2lgc                      1/1     Running   0             30s
 csi-resizer-6d8cf5f99f-8v4sp                          1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   37s
 csi-snapshotter-588457fcdf-6pgf4                      1/1     Running   0             30s
 csi-provisioner-869bdc4b79-7ddwd                      1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   44s
 csi-snapshotter-588457fcdf-p4kkn                      1/1     Running   0             30s
 csi-attacher-7bf4b7f996-mfbdn                         1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   50s
 csi-provisioner-869bdc4b79-4dc7n                      1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   43s
 csi-resizer-6d8cf5f99f-vnspd                          1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   37s
 csi-attacher-7bf4b7f996-hrs7w                         1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   50s
 csi-attacher-7bf4b7f996-rt2s9                         1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   50s
 csi-resizer-6d8cf5f99f-7vv89                          1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   37s
 csi-provisioner-869bdc4b79-sn6zr                      1/1     Running   1 (30s ago)   43s
 longhorn-csi-plugin-b2zzj                             2/2     Running   0             24s

Next, upgrade Longhorn engine.