Upgrade from open-source MinIO on Linux

Use the steps in this document to upgrade a cluster on Linux from open-source MinIO clusters (AGPL3.0) to MinIO AIStor.

Considerations

Upgrading from open-source MinIO to MinIO AIStor is permanent and cannot be reversed. Once upgraded, the cluster cannot be reverted to open-source MinIO.

Upgrading to MinIO AIStor on Linux requires minimal downtime for binary replacement and restart. Recent versions of MinIO AIStor support storing the license directly in the object store, eliminating the need to configure license files on each host.

Upgrade Procedure

Review the Before you begin section prior to starting the upgrade procedure.

1. Back up cluster metadata

   Use the mc admin config export, mc admin cluster bucket export, and mc admin cluster iam export commands to take a snapshot of the cluster configurations:

   mc admin config export ALIAS_NAME > minio-prod-config.txt
   mc admin cluster bucket export ALIAS_NAME
   mc admin cluster iam export ALIAS_NAME

   The commands create the following files in the current folder:

   File name	Contents
   minio-prod-config.txt	Cluster configuration
   ALIAS_NAME-bucket-metadata.zip	Bucket metadata
   ALIAS_NAME-iam-info.zip	IAM metadata

   Save all files to a secure location.

2. Download the MinIO AIStor binary

   Download the latest stable MinIO AIStor binary for Linux. The command overwrites the existing minio binary at that path. Use the command appropriate for your host system CPU architecture.

   AMD64ARM64

   Use the following commands to download the binary for AMD64 architectures and mark the binary as executable.

   curl --retry 10 --progress-bar -L https://dl.min.io/aistor/minio/release/linux-amd64/minio -o minio
   chmod +x ./minio

   Use the following commands to download the binary for ARM64 architectures and mark the binary as executable.

   curl --retry 10 --progress-bar -L https://dl.min.io/aistor/minio/release/linux-arm64/minio -o minio
   chmod +x ./minio

3. Replace the older binary on each node

   Overwrite the existing binary in /usr/local/bin with the downloaded MinIO AIStor binary, using root permissions if necessary.

   sudo mv -f ./minio /usr/local/bin/minio

   Repeat for all nodes in the cluster.

4. Restart the cluster

   Use mc admin service restart to restart all nodes in the cluster simultaneously. Rolling or one-at-a-time restarts may produce undesired behavior as nodes start up with incompatible binaries.

   mc admin service restart ALIAS_NAME

   Monitor the status of the cluster using journalctl -f -u minio. Once all nodes reach healthy status, validate the upgrade version using mc admin info.

5. Register the license

   Download your license from SUBNET or request a free tier license from the MinIO Pricing Page.

   Choose one of the following methods to register your license:

   mc license register (Recommended)Environment variable

   Register the license with the cluster using the mc license register command:

   mc license register ALIAS_NAME --license LICENSE_FILE

   Replace LICENSE_FILE with the path to your downloaded license file.

   The license is stored in the object store and automatically replicated across all nodes.

   Configure the license with the MINIO_LICENSE environment variable:

   1. Copy your license file to /opt/minio/minio.license on each host machine
   2. Ensure the minio-user user and group have read access to the file and path
   3. Add MINIO_LICENSE=/opt/minio/minio.license to /etc/default/minio on all hosts
   4. Restart the cluster with mc admin service restart ALIAS_NAME

   This method requires managing the license file on each host. The file must be identical across all nodes.

   If MinIO AIStor fails to start due to configuration issues, see MinIO AIStor fails to start after Linux upgrade for instructions on importing your backup configurations.