Installing | Upgrading | Downgrading | Uninstalling Weave GitOps Enterprise

Summary

If you are reading this it is likely because you have already installed Weave GitOps Enterprise and you are now considering the necessary steps to either upgrade to a newer version or downgrade as a result of trialling a candidate release or as a result of system/distribution incompatibility (which can happen from time to time).

Prerequisites

Any upgrade/downgrade process will require you to locate your original install manifest. If you have installed the weave gitops enterprise helm chart as originally instructed this should be at 'clusters/management/weave-gitops-enterprise.yaml'. If you have customised the location of this you need to retrieve the location. You may find that searching the repository for the line 'chart: mccp' will corrrectly identify the manifest/resource of 'kind: HelmRelease' which contains your installation. If you have installed in multiple environments take a moment to check the path name references the correct cluster.

The exact path to the version in the helmrelease manifest should be equivalent to 'spec.chart.spec.version: xxx'. Please see https://fluxcd.io/flux/guides/helmreleases/#define-a-helm-release for more information.

We advise always checking the changelog at https://docs.gitops.weave.works/docs/next/enterprise/getting-started/releases-enterprise/ - identify both the existing version from your manifest and version you would like to upgrade/downgrade to. Be sure to note the Kubernetes Distribution and flux version as a precaution to whether the version you are moving will require upgrade of either of those components.

Bear in mind that downgrades may only be supported on early versions of Flux/Kubernetes and it is always advisable to stage an upgrade/downgrade on a non-production environment with symmetrical components (Dex/OIDC provider, Git provider version or any other component that WGE may interface with).

Process: Installation

Please see https://docs.gitops.weave.works/docs/enterprise/getting-started/install-enterprise/ for the canonical method to install.

Process: Upgrade/Downgrade

If you have a compatible version for your kubernetes distribution and Flux version you can proceed to checkout a new branch of the repository where the manifest is configured, replace the existing value in the helm values with the new version and commit the change, open a pull request, code review the change and merge the branch thereafter.

Once you have done this be sure to also repeat this command, replacing thee CLI_VERSION with the release you have just installed:

CLI_VERSION=xxx
curl --silent --location "https://artifacts.wge.dev.weave.works/releases/bin/${CLI_VERSION/gitops-$(uname | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')-$(uname -m).tar.gz" | tar xz -C /tmp
sudo mv /tmp/gitops /usr/local/bin
gitops version

from https://docs.gitops.weave.works/docs/enterprise/getting-started/install-enterprise/#7-install-the-cli.

NOTE: this will replace your existing Gitops CLI binary. feel free to move or alias this by version if you are running multiple instances of Weave GitOps Enterprise.

Process: Uninstall

Assuming flux is still running in your cluster, the uninstallation process is very straightfoward. Delete the HelmRelease manifest. and commit the deletion through the same process as upgrade/downgrade. You can also delete the HelmRepository manifest if you no longer wish to source components from the the same helm repository. Flux will remove the installation on the next reconciliation. For completeness you can also remove the entitlement secret you will have originally created ( see https://docs.gitops.weave.works/docs/enterprise/getting-started/install-enterprise/#3-apply-the-entitlements-secret)

downgrade install upgrade weave_gitops_enterprise wge

Creation date: 30/06/2023 16:41 Updated: 03/07/2023 11:28