Upgrade

This section documents best practices and tutorials for updating the AIStor server on Linux and Kubernetes infrastructure to a newer release.

AIStor upgrades are typically non-disruptive if performed according to guidance and documentation. Applications using MinIO or S3 SDKs can rely on the built-in transparent retry to ensure continuous operations during the update procedure.

Use the mc admin cluster bucket export commands to take a snapshot of the bucket metadata and IAM configurations prior to performing an upgrade. You can use these snapshots to restore settings to recover from user or process errors as necessary.

The Release Notes section provides a reference for identifying the changes applied in each release. Review the associated release notes between your current AIStor version and the newer release so you have a complete view of any changes.

Pay particular attention to any releases that are not backwards compatible. You cannot trivially downgrade from any such release.

AIStor uses a testing and validation suite as part of all releases. However, no testing suite can account for unique combinations and permutations of hardware, software, and workloads of your production environment.

You should always validate any AIStor upgrades in a lower environment (Dev/QA/Staging) before applying those upgrades to Production deployments, or any other environment containing critical data. Performing updates to production environments without first validating in lower environments is done at your own risk.

For AIStor deployments that are significantly behind latest stable (6+ months), consider using AIStor SUBNET for additional support and guidance during the upgrade procedure.

For deployments on Windows or macOS, you can upgrade the Server at any time by performing a binary replacement on the server and restarting the process.

For deployments in a container such as Podman or Docker, use the relevant pull command to retrieve the latest image and restart your container process. If you have pinned to a specific container image, replace that image with the latest release RELEASE.2025-06-27T22:30:56Z