Upgrade Bitbucket without downtime

Before you begin

Before you start planning a rolling upgrade, there’s a few questions you need to answer.

Prepare for the rolling upgrade

1. Complete pre-upgrade checks

1. Check the Version specific upgrade notes for the version you plan to upgrade to (and any in between).
2. Go to Administration and select Support Tools. Then, review the Log analyzer for any issues that may need to be resolved.

3. Check the compatibility of your apps with the version you plan to upgrade to.

   1. Go to Administration and select Manage apps. Then, select Bitbucket update check.

   2. Choose the version you plan to upgrade to. Then, select Check.

      If you have incompatible apps

      If your users rely on particular apps, you may want to wait until they are compatible before upgrading Bitbucket. App vendors generally update their apps very soon after a major release.

      Good to know:

      • If you're performing a major version upgrade, user-installed apps will be disabled. You will need to enable your apps after successfully upgrading, regardless of compatibility with Bitbucket.

      • You can disable an app temporarily if it is not yet compatible. 

2. Prevent the installation or upgrade of apps during the upgrade period

If you manage Bitbucket with a team of admins, schedule the rolling upgrade with them. Notify them to postpone any app installs or upgrades until after the rolling upgrade. Installing or upgrading apps during a rolling upgrade could result in unexpected errors.

3. Back up Bitbucket 

1. Determine which backup strategy to use. 

   Summary of the different backup strategies for Bitbucket...

   For Bitbucket Data Center (version 4.8 or later) instances, you can use Zero Downtime Backup, DIY Backup, or take snapshots of the shared home directory (on NFS) and database while all nodes are stopped. 

   For Bitbucket mirrors, the home directory doesn't store any persistent state that can't be reconstructed from the primary Bitbucket instance, but you should still make sure you have a backup of at least the important configuration files such as SSL certificate, server.xml,  config/ssh-server-keys.pem,  bitbucket.properties file, and so on in a safe place. See  How do I back up my mirrors? for more information.

   See the article Data recovery and backups for detailed information and guidance on creating an effective backup strategy.

2. Back up all the data in your Bitbucket home directory and external database.

If your deployment is hosted on AWS, we recommend that you use the AWS native backup facility, which utilizes snapshots to back up your site. For more information, see AWS Backup. 

4. Set up a staging environment to test the rolling upgrade

We strongly recommend that you perform the rolling upgrade on a staging or test environment first. 

1. Create a staging copy of your current production environment.
2. Follow the steps below to upgrade your test environment.
3. Test any unsupported apps, customizations and proxy configuration (if possible) before upgrading your production environment.

 Perform the rolling upgrade

There are three methods for performing a rolling upgrade, depending on what orchestration tools your deployment uses: