openBalena 2024

Hello folks, looking for some feedback on the new getting started guide, which is part of this openBalena PR.

We’ve made some fairly major structural changes and updated all the deps.

Cheers!

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Hi,

I noticed the minimum version requirements have been updated.

The current release of openBalena has the following minimum version requirements:

  • balenaOS v5.2.8
  • balena CLI v18.2.2

If you are updating from previous openBalena versions, ensure you update the balena CLI and re-provision any devices to at least the minimum required versions in order for them to be fully compatible with this release, as some features may not work.

I’ve been using API version 20.1.14 with some devices still running Balena OS 2.115.x and haven’t encountered any issues so far. Do you know of any specific cases where something broke with these older versions? Or are the new minimum requirements primarily a precautionary measure?

Additionally, I think it would be helpful to have a section about upgrading to newer versions, This section could also include information about necessary changes during the upgrade process. For instance, I recall that the TRUST_PROXY variable needed to be set for the API in a previous update.

Kind regards,
Maurits

Do you know of any specific cases where something broke with these older versions? Or are the new minimum requirements primarily a precautionary measure?

There really wasn’t a lot of science behind this, we just took the currently latest version stamp and put it into the docs. The automated tests alway use the latest version of balenaOS to test with.

So, while we don’t test with previous versions as it would be expensive (we spin up AWS/EC2 instances for each run), they probably will work up to a certain point, 2.100+ should be safe, but testing is recommended prior to upgrade.

Additionally, I think it would be helpful to have a section about upgrading to newer versions, This section could also include information about necessary changes during the upgrade process. For instance, I recall that the TRUST_PROXY variable needed to be set for the API in a previous update.

This is all now codified in the single composition, along with other items, such as REDIS_IS_CLUSTER, I’ll add a note about upgrading, but since we aren’t actively supporting real openBalena deployments anywhere, we’ll look to the community to perform the ultimate upgrade test…

Thanks for the quick reply.

This is all now codified in the single composition, along with other items, such as REDIS_IS_CLUSTER , I’ll add a note about upgrading, but since we aren’t actively supporting real openBalena deployments anywhere, we’ll look to the community to perform the ultimate upgrade test…

I think it’s important to highlight this in the documentation. New people might assume the master branch to just work and it can help set the right expectations when trying out OpenBalena.

Over the past year, I have upgraded several OpenBalena instances, starting from version v0.209.2 all the way up to v20.1.14. I have taken notes during these upgrades and I’m more than willing to contribute them to some sort of community upgrade guide.

Over the past year, I have upgraded several OpenBalena instances, starting from version v0.209.2 all the way up to v20.1.14. I have taken notes during these upgrades and I’m more than willing to contribute them to some sort of community upgrade guide.

We’d love that. I suggest we create another link off the main README.md called “Upgrade/migration guide” or something to that effect, cleanup and put your notes there.

Great to hear. I’ll look into it when I have some free time

Hy

is there some progress of the new helping page?

We try to upgrade from a old open-balena server to the latest one.

It seems there are huge differences between this versions (we have installed the 2 year old one, without the new Makefil)

The new makefile is creating new volumes for every container.

is it possible to copy the content from the old volumes to the new ones?

Is there a upgrade path to migrate the old version to the newest one?

we have this container version installed.
a simple git pull and make up is not possible anymore…

balena/open-balena-api:v0.209.2     
balena/open-balena-registry:v2.25.3 
balena/open-balena-s3:v2.13.10      
openbalena_cert-provider            
redis:alpine                        
balena/open-balena-db:v5.1.2                                                                                      openbalena_db_1