Table of Contents
- 1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS
- Overview
- Upgrade procedure
- 1 Stop Zabbix processes
- 2 Back up the existing Zabbix database
- 3 Back up configuration files, PHP files and Zabbix binaries
- 4 Update repository configuration package
- 5 Upgrade Zabbix components
- 6 Review component configuration parameters
- 7 Start Zabbix processes
- 8 Clear web browser cookies and cache
- Upgrade between minor versions
1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS
Overview
This section provides the steps required for a successful upgrade from Zabbix 4.4.x to Zabbix 5.0.x using official Zabbix packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS.
While upgrading Zabbix agents is not mandatory (but recommended), Zabbix server and proxies must be of the same major version. Therefore, in a server-proxy setup, Zabbix server and all proxies have to be stopped and upgraded. Keeping proxies running during server upgrade no longer will bring any benefit as during proxy upgrade their old data will be discarded and no new data will be gathered until proxy configuration is synced with server.
Note that with SQLite database on proxies, history data from proxies before the upgrade will be lost, because SQLite database upgrade is not supported and the SQLite database file has to be manually removed. When proxy is started for the first time and the SQLite database file is missing, proxy creates it automatically.
Depending on database size the database upgrade to version 5.0 may take a long time.
Before the upgrade make sure to read the relevant upgrade notes!
RHEL/CentOS 7 users, be aware of PHP >= 7.2 version requirements when upgrading frontend!
Be sure to read relevant documentation!
The following upgrade notes are available:
| Upgrade from | Read full upgrade notes | Most important changes between versions |
|---|---|---|
| 4.4.x | For: Zabbix 5.0 |
Support of IBM DB2 dropped; Minimum required PHP version upped from 5.4.0 to 7.2.0; Minimum required database versions upped. |
| 4.2.x | For: Zabbix 4.4 Zabbix 5.0 |
Jabber, Ez Texting media types removed. |
| 4.0.x LTS | For: Zabbix 4.2 Zabbix 4.4 Zabbix 5.0 |
Older proxies no longer can report data to an upgraded server; Newer agents no longer will be able to work with an older Zabbix server. |
| 3.4.x | For: Zabbix 4.0 Zabbix 4.2 Zabbix 4.4 Zabbix 5.0 |
'libpthread' and 'zlib' libraries now mandatory; Support for plain text protocol dropped and header is mandatory; Pre-1.4 version Zabbix agents are no longer supported; The Server parameter in passive proxy configuration now mandatory. |
| 3.2.x | For: Zabbix 3.4 Zabbix 4.0 Zabbix 4.2 Zabbix 4.4 Zabbix 5.0 |
SQLite support as backend database dropped for Zabbix server/frontend; Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) supported instead of POSIX extended; 'libpcre' and 'libevent' libraries mandatory for Zabbix server; Exit code checks added for user parameters, remote commands and system.run[] items without the 'nowait' flag as well as Zabbix server executed scripts; Zabbix Java gateway has to be upgraded to support new functionality. |
| 3.0.x LTS | For: Zabbix 3.2 Zabbix 3.4 Zabbix 4.0 Zabbix 4.2 Zabbix 4.4 Zabbix 5.0 |
Database upgrade may be slow, depending on the history table size. |
You may also want to check the requirements for 5.0.
It may be handy to run two parallel SSH sessions during the upgrade, executing the upgrade steps in one and monitoring the server/proxy logs in another. For example, run tail -f zabbix_server.log or tail -f zabbix_proxy.log in the second SSH session showing you the latest log file entries and possible errors in real time. This can be critical for production instances.
Upgrade procedure
1 Stop Zabbix processes
Stop Zabbix server to make sure that no new data is inserted into database.
If upgrading the proxy, stop proxy too.
It is no longer possible to start the upgraded server and have older and unupgraded proxies report data to a newer server. This approach, which was never recommended nor supported by Zabbix, now is officially disabled when upgrading to 5.0 (or later) from any version before 4.4, as the server will ignore data from unupgraded proxies.
2 Back up the existing Zabbix database
This is a very important step. Make sure that you have a backup of your database. It will help if the upgrade procedure fails (lack of disk space, power off, any unexpected problem).
3 Back up configuration files, PHP files and Zabbix binaries
Make a backup copy of Zabbix binaries, configuration files and the PHP file directory.
Configuration files:
# mkdir /opt/zabbix-backup/
# cp /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf /opt/zabbix-backup/
# cp /etc/httpd/conf.d/zabbix.conf /opt/zabbix-backup/PHP files and Zabbix binaries:
4 Update repository configuration package
Before proceeding with the upgrade, update your current repository package to the latest version to ensure compatibility with the newest packages and to include any recent security patches or bug fixes.
On RHEL/CentOS 8, run:
On RHEL/CentOS 7, run:
For RHEL/CentOS 9 or versions older than RHEL/CentOS 7, replace the link above with the correct one from Zabbix repository. Note, however, that packages for those versions may not include all Zabbix components. For a list of components included, see Zabbix packages.
Then, update the repository information:
See also: Known issues for updating the repository configuration package on RHEL/CentOS.
5 Upgrade Zabbix components
To upgrade Zabbix components you may run something like:
If using PostgreSQL, substitute mysql with pgsql in the command. If upgrading the proxy, substitute server with proxy in the command. If upgrading the agent 2, substitute zabbix-agent with zabbix-agent2 in the command.
To upgrade the web frontend with Apache on RHEL 8 correctly, also run:
and make the following changes to the /etc/php-fpm.d/zabbix.conf file (uncomment and set the right timezone for you):
To upgrade the web frontend on RHEL 7 follow instructions on this page (extra steps are required to install PHP 7.2 or newer). In particular, make sure to install zabbix-apache-conf-scl package if you use Apache web server.
6 Review component configuration parameters
See the upgrade notes for details on mandatory changes.
7 Start Zabbix processes
Start the updated Zabbix components.
# systemctl start zabbix-server
# systemctl start zabbix-proxy
# systemctl start zabbix-agent
# systemctl start zabbix-agent28 Clear web browser cookies and cache
After the upgrade you may need to clear web browser cookies and web browser cache for the Zabbix web interface to work properly.
Upgrade between minor versions
It is possible to upgrade between minor versions of 5.0.x (for example, from 5.0.1 to 5.0.3). Upgrading between minor versions is easy.
To execute Zabbix minor version upgrade it is required to run:
To execute Zabbix server minor version upgrade run:
To execute Zabbix agent minor version upgrade run:
or, for Zabbix agent 2:
Note that you may also use 'update' instead of 'upgrade' in these commands. While 'upgrade' will delete obsolete packages, 'update' will preserve them.