grafana/docs/sources/shared/upgrade/upgrade-common-tasks.md

title
Upgrade guide common tasks

We recommend that you upgrade Grafana often to stay current with the latest fixes and enhancements. Because Grafana upgrades are backward compatible, the upgrade process is straightforward, and dashboards and graphs will not change.

In addition to common tasks you should complete for all versions of Grafana, there might be additional upgrade tasks to complete for a version.

{{% admonition type="note" %}} There might be breaking changes in some releases. We outline these changes in the [What's New ]({{< relref "../../whatsnew/" >}}) document for most releases or a separate [Breaking changes]({{< relref "../../breaking-changes/" >}}) document for releases with many breaking changes. {{% /admonition %}}

For versions of Grafana prior to v9.2, we published additional information in the [Release Notes]({{< relref "../../release-notes/" >}}).

When available, we list all changes with links to pull requests or issues in the Changelog.

{{% admonition type="note" %}} When possible, we recommend that you test the Grafana upgrade process in a test or development environment. {{% /admonition %}}

Back up the Grafana database

Although Grafana automatically upgrades the database on startup, we recommend that you back up your Grafana database so that you can roll back to a previous version, if required.

SQLite

If you use SQLite, you only need to back up the grafana.db file. On Unix systems, the database file is usually located in /var/lib/grafana/.

If you are unsure which database you use and where it is stored, check the Grafana configuration file. If you installed Grafana to a custom location using a binary tar/zip, the database is usually located in <grafana_install_dir>/data.

MySQL

To back up or restore a MySQL Grafana database, run the following commands:

backup:
> mysqldump -u root -p[root_password] [grafana] > grafana_backup.sql

restore:
> mysql -u root -p grafana < grafana_backup.sql

Postgres

To back up or restore a Postgres Grafana database, run the following commands:

backup:
> pg_dump grafana > grafana_backup

restore:
> psql grafana < grafana_backup

Backup plugins

We recommend that you back up installed plugins before you upgrade Grafana so that you can roll back to a previous version of Grafana, if necessary.

Upgrade Grafana

The following sections provide instructions for how to upgrade Grafana based on your installation method.

Debian

To upgrade Grafana installed from a Debian package (.deb), complete the following steps:

1. In your current installation of Grafana, save your custom configuration changes to a file named <grafana_install_dir>/conf/custom.ini.

   This enables you to upgrade Grafana without the risk of losing your configuration changes.

2. Download the latest version of Grafana.

3. Run the following dpkg -i command.

   wget <debian package url>
   sudo apt-get install -y adduser
   sudo dpkg -i grafana_<version>_amd64.deb
   

APT repository

To upgrade Grafana installed from the Grafana Labs APT repository, complete the following steps:

1. In your current installation of Grafana, save your custom configuration changes to a file named <grafana_install_dir>/conf/custom.ini.

   This enables you to upgrade Grafana without the risk of losing your configuration changes.

2. Run the following commands:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get upgrade
   

Grafana automatically updates when you run apt-get upgrade.

Binary .tar file

To upgrade Grafana installed from the binary .tar.gz package, complete the following steps:

1. In your current installation of Grafana, save your custom configuration changes to a file named <grafana_install_dir>/conf/custom.ini.

   This enables you to upgrade Grafana without the risk of losing your configuration changes.

2. Download the binary .tar.gz package.

3. Extract the downloaded package and overwrite the existing files.

RPM or YUM

To upgrade Grafana installed using RPM or YUM complete the following steps:

1. In your current installation of Grafana, save your custom configuration changes to a file named <grafana_install_dir>/conf/custom.ini.

   This enables you to upgrade Grafana without the risk of losing your configuration changes.

2. Perform one of the following steps based on your installation.

   • If you downloaded an RPM package to install Grafana, then complete the steps documented in [Install Grafana on Red Hat, RHEL, or Fedora]({{< relref "../../setup-grafana/installation/redhat-rhel-fedora/" >}}) or [Install Grafana on SUSE or openSUSE]({{< relref "../../setup-grafana/installation/suse-opensuse/" >}}) to upgrade Grafana.

   • If you used the Grafana YUM repository, run the following command:

     sudo yum update grafana
     

   • If you installed Grafana on openSUSE or SUSE, run the following command:

     sudo zypper update
     

Docker

To upgrade Grafana running in a Docker container, complete the following steps:

1. In your current installation of Grafana, save your custom configuration changes to a file named <grafana_install_dir>/conf/custom.ini.

   This enables you to upgrade Grafana without the risk of losing your configuration changes.

2. Run a commands similar to the following commands.

   {{% admonition type="note" %}} This is an example. The parameters you enter depend on how you configured your Grafana container. {{% /admonition %}}

   docker pull grafana/grafana
   docker stop my-grafana-container
   docker rm my-grafana-container
   docker run -d --name=my-grafana-container --restart=always -v /var/lib/grafana:/var/lib/grafana grafana/grafana
   

Windows

To upgrade Grafana installed on Windows, complete the following steps:

1. In your current installation of Grafana, save your custom configuration changes to a file named <grafana_install_dir>/conf/custom.ini.

   This enables you to upgrade Grafana without the risk of losing your configuration changes.

2. Download the Windows binary package.

3. Extract the contents of the package to the location in which you installed Grafana.

   You can overwrite existing files and folders, when prompted.

Mac

To upgrade Grafana installed on Mac, complete the following steps:

1. In your current installation of Grafana, save your custom configuration changes to a file named <grafana_install_dir>/conf/custom.ini.

   This enables you to upgrade Grafana without the risk of losing your configuration changes.

2. Download the Mac binary package.

3. Extract the contents of the package to the location in which you installed Grafana.

   You can overwrite existing files and folders, when prompted.

Update Grafana plugins

After you upgrade Grafana, we recommend that you update all plugins because a new version of Grafana can make older plugins stop working properly.

Run the following command to update plugins:

grafana cli plugins update-all