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Updating an Application

You can update an application using the Replicated admin console or the Replicated kots CLI. See Update an Application in the Admin Console or Update an Application with the kots CLI below.

Update an Application in the Admin Console

You can manually update an application in the Version History tab of the admin console. This method works for both online and air gapped installations.

For applications installed in an online environment, you can also configure the admin console to automatically check for and deploy new versions of an application on a custom cadence. For more information, see Configure Automatic Updates below.

To manually update an application:

  1. In the admin console, go to the Version History tab.

  2. Do one of the following, depending on if you are in an online or air gap environment:

    • (Online) Click Check for updates to manually check for new versions of the application.
    • (Air gap) Click Upload a new version to upload a new version of the application.

    When the admin console downloads an update (for online), or when you upload an update (for air gap), a new upstream version displays in the list of available versions.

    New Version Available

  3. (Optional) When there are multiple versions of an application, you can compare the changes between them by clicking Diff releases in the right corner.

    You can review changes between any two arbitrary releases by clicking the icon in the header of the release column. Select the two versions to compare, and click Diff releases to show the relative changes between the two releases.

    Diff Releases New Changes

  4. Click the View preflight checks logo to view or re-run the preflight checks defined by the application vendor.

    Preflight Checks

  5. To update the application, return to the Version History tab and click Deploy next to the target version.

    When you update an application, the current cluster is updated to the new version of the application and the Deployed status is set on that version.

Configure Automatic Updates

For applications installed in an online environment, the admin console automatically checks for new versions once every 4 hours by default. After the admin console checks for updates, it downloads any new versions of the application and displays them on the Version History tab.

You can edit this default cadence to customize how often the admin console checks for and downloads new versions.

You can also configure the admin console to automatically deploy new versions of the application after it downloads them. The admin console only deploys new versions automatically if preflight checks pass. By default, the admin console does not automatically deploy any version of an application.

You cannot configure automatic updates for applications installed in air gapped environments.

To configure automatic updates:

  1. In the admin console, go to the Version History tab and click Configure automatic updates.

    The Configure automatic updates dialog opens.

  2. Under Automatically check for updates, use the default or select a cadence (Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Never, Custom) from the dropdown list.

    To turn off automatic updates, select Never.

    To define a custom cadence, select Custom, then enter a cron expression in the text field. For more information about cron expressions, see Cron Expressions in Reference. Configured automatic update checks use the local server time.

    Configure automatic updates

  3. Under Automatically deploy new versions, select an option. The available options depend on whether semantic versioning is enabled for the channel.

    • For channels that use semantic versioning: (v1.58.0 and later) Select an option in the dropdown to specify the versions that the admin console automatically deploys. For example, to automatically deploy only new patch and minor versions, select Automatically deploy new patch and minor versions.
    • For channels that do not use semantic versioning: (v1.67.0 and later) Optionally select Enable automatic deployment. When this checkbox is enabled, the admin console automatically deploys each new version of the application that it downloads.

Update an Application with the kots CLI

The kots CLI can be used to install and deploy updates for both online and air gapped instances as well.

Online Installations

In order to download updates from the internet, the following command can be used:

kubectl kots upstream upgrade <app slug> -n <admin console namespace>

Adding the --deploy flag will also automatically deploy the latest version.

The application slug is provided by your software vendor. For more information, see Get the Application Slug in Managing Applications.

Air Gapped Installations on an Existing Cluster

In order to install an update from an air gap file, the following command can be used:

kubectl kots upstream upgrade <app slug> \
--airgap-bundle new-app-release.airgap \
--kotsadm-namespace <registry namespace> \
--kotsadm-registry <registry host> \
--registry-username <username> \
--registry-password <password> \
-n <admin console namespace>

Adding the --deploy flag will also automatically deploy this version.

The application slug is provided by your software vendor. For more information, see Get the Application Slug in Managing Applications.

Air Gapped Installations in Embedded kURL Clusters

To update the application in an air gapped environment with Replicated kURL, download the new application air gap bundle, and run the following command:

kubectl kots upstream upgrade APP_SLUG --airgap-bundle PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE -n NAMESPACE

Adding the --deploy flag will also automatically deploy this version.

Replace:

  • APP_SLUG with the application slug provided by your software vendor. For more information, see Get the Application Slug in Managing Applications.
  • PATH_TO_AIRGAP_BUNDLE with the path to the .airgap bundle file.
  • NAMESPACE with the admin console namespace. Typically this value is default.