Smoothly Upgrading to Mattermost v5.0
We’re excited to announce the release of Mattermost v5.0 is planned for June 16th, 2018. To ensure your upgrade is smooth and easy, we’re outlining some of the key changes and Q&A below.
Why is the version number increasing to v5.0?
In Mattermost v5.0, we’ve upgraded our permission system. You can read about the change here, or watch a demo here including a short Q&A on how the migration works.
While the upgrade process will run a migration script to automatically transition your Mattermost server to the new system, the backend change is significant enough to require a major version number increase.
Read more about other upcoming changes in 5.0 in our draft changelog, including removal of the deprecated APIv3, announced back in 2017.
As an IT admin, what should I confirm before upgrading to Mattermost v5.0?
If you’re following the Mattermost upgrade guide with standard defaults, everything should go smoothly. If you’ve done a fair amount of customization, please double check the following:
1. Confirm your “Site URL” is set
The Site URL setting is currently required for features like email notifications, SSO, and plugins to work properly. To make the upgrade as smooth as possible, we recommend you set the Site URL now before you upgrade.
2. Confirm your jobs server is enabled
The jobs server should already be enabled by default, but we recommend checking that it is enabled before upgrading since it will be used to run a migration script.
3. Confirm your database is backed up
We always recommend backing up your database before upgrading as part of our upgrade guide, and since v5.0 involves a migration to the new permissions system, it’s important not to forget this step.
4. Confirm that integrations are using APIv4
As mentioned in previous announcements, in Mattermost v5.0 the deprecated APIv3 will be completely removed.
This means that before upgrading, we recommend you follow our instructions for migrating any integrations still using APIv3.
Not ready to move away from APIv3 completely? Then we recommend upgrading to v4.10 instead, which is an extended support release where security upgrades and major bug fixes will be backported for a longer period of time than usual.
5. (Optional) Consider updating any automation or orchestration relying on the “platform” binary name
Based on community feedback, in Mattermost v5.0, the platform binary is being renamed to the mattermost binary to make the binary easier to find and use. Prior to upgrading, you should point your systemd service file at the new mattermost binary.
While using platform will continue to work both to run the server and to run the CLI tools, a warning message will be printed that the binary has been renamed mattermost.