Vault
Upgrade replicated Vault deployments
Upgrade your replicated Vault deployment.
HA installations
The recommended upgrade procedure depends on the version of Vault you're currently on and the storage backend of Vault. If you're currently running on Vault 1.11 or later with Integrated Storage and you have Autopilot enabled, you should let Autopilot do the upgrade for you, as that's easier and less prone to human error. Please refer to our automated upgrades documentation for information on this feature and our Automate Upgrades with Vault Enterprise tutorial for more details.
If you're currently on a version of Vault before 1.11, or you've chosen to opt-out the Autopilot automated upgrade features when running Vault after 1.11 with Integrated Storage, or if you are running Vault with other storage backend such as Consul. Please refer to our Vault HA upgrades Pre 1.11/Without Autopilot Upgrade Automation documentation for more details. Please note that this upgrade procedure also applies if you are upgrading Vault from pre 1.11 to post 1.11.
Enterprise replication installations
Note
Prior to any upgrade, be sure to also read and follow any instructions in the version-specific upgrade notes which are found in the navigation menu for this documentation.
Upgrading Vault Enterprise clusters which participate in Enterprise Replication requires the following basic order of operations:
- Upgrade the replication secondary instances first using appropriate guidance from the previous sections
- Verify functionality of each secondary instance after upgrading
- When satisfied with functionality of upgraded secondary instances, upgrade the primary instance
Note
It is not safe to replicate from a newer version of Vault to an older version. When upgrading replicated clusters, ensure that upstream clusters are always on older versions of Vault than downstream clusters.
Here is an example of upgrading four Vault replicated Vault clusters:
In the above scenario, the ideal upgrade procedure would be as follows, verifying functionality after each cluster upgrade.
- Upgrade Clusters B and D. These clusters have no downstream clusters, so they should be upgraded first, but the ordering of B vs D does not matter.
- Upgrade Cluster C, which now has an upgraded downstream cluster (Cluster D). Because Cluster C is a cluster, it should also use the HA upgrade process.
- Finally, upgrade Cluster A. All clusters downstream of A will already be upgraded. It should be upgraded last, as it is a Performance Primary and a DR Primary.
Other stuff
Important: Always back up your data before upgrading! Vault does not make backward-compatibility guarantees for its data store. Simply replacing the newly-installed Vault binary with the previous version will not cleanly downgrade Vault, as upgrades may perform changes to the underlying data structure that make the data incompatible with a downgrade. If you need to roll back to a previous version of Vault, you should roll back your data store as well.
Vault upgrades are designed such that large jumps (ie 1.3.10 -> 1.7.x) are supported. The upgrade notes for each intervening version must be reviewed. The upgrade notes may describe additional steps or configuration to update before, during, or after the upgrade.
We also recommend you consult the deprecation notices. The notice page includes a comprehensive list of deprecated features and the Vault versions where the feature was removed or is scheduled to be removed.
Testing the upgrade
It's always a good idea to try to ensure that the upgrade will be successful in your environment. The ideal way to do this is to take a snapshot of your data and load it into a test cluster. However, if you are issuing secrets to third party resources (cloud credentials, database credentials, etc.) ensure that you do not allow external network connectivity during testing, in case credentials expire. This prevents the test cluster from trying to revoke these resources along with the non-test cluster.
HA installations
The recommended upgrade procedure depends on the version of Vault you're currently on and the storage backend of Vault. If you're currently running on Vault 1.11 or later with Integrated Storage and you have Autopilot enabled, you should let Autopilot do the upgrade for you, as that's easier and less prone to human error. Please refer to our automated upgrades documentation for information on this feature and our Automate Upgrades with Vault Enterprise tutorial for more details.
If you're currently on a version of Vault before 1.11, or you've chosen to opt-out the Autopilot automated upgrade features when running Vault after 1.11 with Integrated Storage, or if you are running Vault with other storage backend such as Consul. Please refer to our Vault HA upgrades Pre 1.11/Without Autopilot Upgrade Automation documentation for more details. Please note that this upgrade procedure also applies if you are upgrading Vault from pre 1.11 to post 1.11.
Enterprise replication installations
Note
Prior to any upgrade, be sure to also read and follow any instructions in the version-specific upgrade notes which are found in the navigation menu for this documentation.
Upgrading Vault Enterprise clusters which participate in Enterprise Replication requires the following basic order of operations:
- Upgrade the replication secondary instances first using appropriate guidance from the previous sections
- Verify functionality of each secondary instance after upgrading
- When satisfied with functionality of upgraded secondary instances, upgrade the primary instance
Note
It is not safe to replicate from a newer version of Vault to an older version. When upgrading replicated clusters, ensure that upstream clusters are always on older versions of Vault than downstream clusters.
Here is an example of upgrading four Vault replicated Vault clusters:
In the above scenario, the ideal upgrade procedure would be as follows, verifying functionality after each cluster upgrade.
- Upgrade Clusters B and D. These clusters have no downstream clusters, so they should be upgraded first, but the ordering of B vs D does not matter.
- Upgrade Cluster C, which now has an upgraded downstream cluster (Cluster D). Because Cluster C is a cluster, it should also use the HA upgrade process.
- Finally, upgrade Cluster A. All clusters downstream of A will already be upgraded. It should be upgraded last, as it is a Performance Primary and a DR Primary.