Upgrade MariaDB 10.3 to 10.6

[Andy83]

Hi, I read that MariaDB 10.3 will reach end of life on 25 May 2023. What does that imply? No more updates for this version?

We are planning to perform upgrade to 10.6 next month. Is there anything important to take note? Do we need to rewrite some queries?

How long does the upgrade takes? If we have a large database of 500GB, does it mean the upgrade to MariaDB 10.6 will take a much longer time?

Thank you.

 

[cPRex]

Hey there! When a version reaches end of life, that means it will not longer receive security updates (or updates of any kind) from the maker of that tool.

Only a professional database administrator would be able to confirm if everything on the system will work with the newer version. Unfortunately I don't have any automated tools available. If your sites use commonly-available tools, such as WordPress or Joomla, I would expect them to be just fine.

The size of the databses do not affect the time it takes the system to update. While I always recommend having backups available and performing major work during non-peak hours for your system and users, the update itself will likely take less than five minutes to complete.

 

[Andy83]

Hi Rex, what is a popular and efficient way to backup a massive database of 500GB? How long will this method take to backup a database of that quantum?

 

[cPRex]

I'm not sure there's any better way than any other typical way. Dumping the database to a .sql file will likely give you the smallest backup possible while still retaining all the data necessary to restore from if necessary.

Details on that process can be found here - https://support.cpanel.net/hc/en-us/articles/360041291913-MySQL-backups-with-mysqldump

 

[sparek-3]

Wondering if the OP or anyone else has done this MariaDB 10.3 to MariaDB 10.6 update? Any issues?

Database server upgrades can be fickle - although, I think that is LARGELY in the past. I don't think they are quite as bad as they once were.

As long as clients are using up to date and reputable scripts, these database server upgrades probably aren't that problematic. But it's the accounts that are using outdated, or non-reputable scripts, or custom written scripts that typically tend to face problems. And it's next to impossible to know what accounts are doing that until this upgrade is made.

 

[mtindor]

Wondering if the OP or anyone else has done this MariaDB 10.3 to MariaDB 10.6 update? Any issues?

Database server upgrades can be fickle - although, I think that is LARGELY in the past. I don't think they are quite as bad as they once were.

As long as clients are using up to date and reputable scripts, these database server upgrades probably aren't that problematic. But it's the accounts that are using outdated, or non-reputable scripts, or custom written scripts that typically tend to face problems. And it's next to impossible to know what accounts are doing that until this upgrade is made.

I've done MariaDB 10.3-->10.5 on two Cloudlinux 6 ELS servers running WHM 108 which weren't running MySQL Governor. I had to install MySQL Governor, back up the databases, then use MYSQL Governor to install the cl-* MariaDB 10.3 packages and remove the old MariaDB 10.3 packages. Once I did that, I used MySQL Governor to upgrade to MariaDB 10.5 -- so far without issue that anyone has reported.

Tips though: remove the galera RPM (if you aren't using Galera for clustering, and I'm not) and rename the mytop executable to something like mytop.disabled. Otherwise, the upgrade process will crap out. I can't remember if that happened during the MySQL Governor install, or if it happened with the 10.3 --> 10.5 update using MySQL Governor. Search the forums for mariadb galera mytop. It is written about in here, and I think there is an article on support.cpanel.net about it.

If you running something newer than CloudLinux 6 ELS, you probably don't have to install MySQL Governor and likely can just upgrade within WHM itself. Of course if you are running MySQL Governorn already, you'll have to use it to upgrade. In my case, running CloudLinux ELS 6, in WHM it would not allow me to upgrade using the facility within WHM and I had to install MySQL Governor. I think that is specific to CL6 ELS.

I didn't upgrade to 10.6 because my CL6 boxes will be gone / accounts moved to CL8/9 boxes by the time 10.5 is EOL.