Upgrading Ignition

I’m confused on how to upgrade Ignition to new versions for both Windows and Linux platforms. Been searching but haven’t ran across any instructions.

On Windows you just run the installer for the newer version. It detects if there is an older version installed and just does an upgrade.

On Linux it’s a bit more complicated. Most people just make a backup, clobber their existing installations, then restore the backup. We are working on a Linux upgrading tool to make this a little easier…

On linux, you can also do this:

  1. Download the context package ([tt]*.gpkg[/tt] file)
  2. Drop it in the ignition install directory under a folder called [tt]upgrades[/tt]
  3. Restart the Gateway.

Upon startup, the bootstrap web server will look for a folder called [tt]upgrades/[/tt] and look for context package files inside it. It will then apply those context packages to your main context, which upgrades Ignition and the modules. Make sure Ignition has r/w permissions to the [tt]*.gpkg[/tt] file

Thanks, guys. As a linux user, I never realized you could just use the context for an upgrade. Conversely, if you wanted to revert back to a previous version for some reason, I assume you could just use an older versions context?

Dan

Never assume reverting back will work. We program our software for backwards compatability (what you make in version X will work in version X+1) but not for forwards compatability (what you made with version X may not work with X-1)

I was thinking more of a situation along the lines of something already in place having issues on a new version due to a bug, change in required configuration, etc after the upgrade. Aka no project changes were made, just a quick rollback. Not to doubt backwards-compatibility, but, ya know, stuff happens sometimes! I back up things compulsively anyway, so even with a context-style upgrade, I could revert by restoring the old gateway instances directories. Plus we obviously test in a safe, happy place before rolling out changes to catch these types of things ahead of time :slight_smile: It was more a question out of curiosity.

Thanks!

Dan

I couldn’t find the folder /upgrades so I deleted the Ignition folder from /usr/local/bin. I reloaded build 5670 following the readme instruction in the .gpkg folder. However, when I start Ignition from the console it prompted me and said that it was running. I looked in the system monitor process folder and Ignition was not running. I recall when everything was running ok Ignition was present and running in the sys monitor. I could not start the gateway from my browser as well. Interesting enough it did run the Dairy example program though.

Started up this morning and tried again and wala it started. I was wrong on my above post, the Ignition gateway was started, I just was viewing my processes instead of all processes. Seems that the only difference was a cold start instead of a restart. Seems strange but, if I find something concrete I’ll follow up.

I should have been more specific above: you have to create the [tt]upgrades/[/tt] folder by hand.

Just to verify - the new folder would go into /usr/local/bin/ignition/upgrades ??

Correct upgrades with an s.

Yep, moved the .gpkg into the folder /upgrades and everything worked. Upgraded on reboot. Thanks