Upgrade an existing installation

Generic instructions

1. Backup your old environment

   You’re not going to start without a proper backup of the previous installation, are you? We strongly recommend you start off with a backup of a) all PostgreSQL databases and b) the configuration file /etc/frepple/djangosettings.py.

2. Upgrade the PostgreSQL database

   FrePPLe requires 13 or higher. If you’re on an older version, upgrading your PostgreSQL database is the first step.

   When you move your frepple databases to a new server, there are some special considerations to follow. Depending on the method you used to dump and restore the databases some extra steps may be required.

   1. Assure the new database is correctly tuned.

      The default installation of PostgreSQL is not configured right for scalable production use.

      We advice using pgtune http://pgtune.leopard.in.ua/ to optimize the configuration for your hardware. Use “data warehouse” as application type and also assure the max_connection setting is moved from the default 100 to eg 400.

   2. Frepple uses 2 database roles to access the database. These are configured as USER (for full access) and SQL_ROLE (for read-only access to some tables in report manager) in the DATABASES section of your /etc/frepple/djangosettings.py file.

      All objects in your new databases should be owned by the USER.

   3. The database user USER should be granted the SQL_ROLE.

      It’s possible that this grant was not part of your dump-restore process. If so, you can correct that by running the following SQL command as a database administrator.

      GRANT <SQL_ROLE> TO <USER>;
      

3. Install the new frePPLe release.

   Install the new .deb or .rpm package.

   sudo dpkg --force-confold -i ./*.deb
   

   The installer will prompt you whether you want to migrate your database now to the new release. If you case you allow run it now, you can skip one of the steps below.

4. Update the configuration file /etc/frepple/djangosettings.py

   The installation created a new version of the configuration file. Now, you’ll need to merge your edits from the old file into the new file.

   In our experience an incorrectly updated configuration file is the most common mistake when upgrading. So, take this edit seriously and don’t just use the old file without a very careful comparison.

5. Migrate the frePPLe databases

   In case you didn’t opt to migrate your databases as part of the installation process you will need to run it manually.

   frepplectl migrate
   

   On a fresh installation, this command intializes all database objects. When running it on an existing installation it will incrementally update the database schema without any loss of data.

6. Restart your apache server

   After a restart of the web server, the new environment will be up and running.

Ubuntu upgrade script

The commands below are a convenience summary of the above steps implemented for a Ubuntu Linux server.

sudo apt -y -q update
sudo apt -y -q upgrade

# Upgrade of the PostgreSQL database isn't covered in these commands.

# Download the ubuntu package of the new release here.

sudo dpkg --force-confold -i <frepple installation package>.deb

# Manually edit the /etc/frepple/djangosettings.py file. The previous line
# keeps the old configuration file, which may not be ok for the new release.

# This step can be skipped if you choose to run it during the installation.
frepplectl migrate

sudo service apache2 reload