Hi All,

My organization is using flipt for about 300 feature flags.

We are currently running version 0.7.1 and would like to upgrade to the latest edition.

Are there any considerations to be concerned about when upgrading through so many versions?

What would the process look like to export/import the existing feature flags?

We have a dev instance we can test in but I wanted to reach out and see if there was any guidance on the upgrade process as I didn't see specifics in the docs.

Some details:

Flipt deployed with Helm
Using PostgresDB Backend
K8S verson 1.17.12

Thanks,
Rhys

👋 hi @rpowellkore

great that you are looking to upgrade

while we always aim to make the migration path as smooth as possible, i would recommend testing the following on your dev instance first as that is indeed a lot of versions:

1. backing up your database that contains all of your Flipt data
2. using flipt export (https://www.flipt.io/docs/configuration/storage#export) to output your data in YAML
3. download / install the latest version
4. run flipt migrate to run the database migrations
5. run flipt import with the data you previously exported

again, I would recommend trying this only on your dev instance first. everything should be backwards compatible, and any config changes/deprecations should output to the console at startup. but i've never tried upgrading that many versions

also as its in k8s, you might need to create some one off pods where you shell in and run these commands

if you use the latest version of flipt in your helm chart, flipt will refuse to start if there are any migrations pending, which there will be

this should give you the chance to perform the above steps manually

actually, you shouldnt need to import sorry about that

Hey @markphelps - thanks so much for the guidance and help. It looks like exporting to YAML isn't implemented until v0.13.0, so I think my process will be as such

In Dev instance:

1. take backup of PGSQL DB.
2. upgrade from 0.7.1 to 0.13.0
3. Run migrations
4. Verify flags are present
5. Export to YAML
6. Backup database again
7. Upgrade to latest
8. Run migrations
9. Validate

export is just a failsafe

Aha I was just wondering about that and was going to ask!

yeah, in reality the import/export is mainly for moving data to a new instance/db

in your case you should be good with just backing up the db, then performing the migration

OK great, I will give it a shot and report back. Thanks for the help!

cheers! yes please do. fwiw we are looking to improve our docs with info on how to upgrade versions, so any input you can share as you go through the process would be super helpful