Upgrade the Red Hat Edge Manager RPM installation

Upgrade the flightctl-services package on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux host to move to a newer Red Hat Edge Manager release. You can run the upgrade while Flight Control services are running; after the package upgrade completes, restart the services and verify that they are healthy.

Before you begin

  • An existing Red Hat Edge Manager installation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux that uses the flightctl-services RPM. For more information, see Additional resources.
  • An active Red Hat Edge Manager subscription that includes the content repositories for the release you are upgrading to
  • Administrative access (root or sudo-capable user) on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux host
  • You are logged in to the Red Hat Container Registry at registry.redhat.io on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux host (sudo podman login registry.redhat.io with your Red Hat Customer Portal credentials). Podman must pull updated container images when services restart; without registry authentication, dnf can report a successful upgrade while Flight Control services fail to start.
  • A current backup of the PostgreSQL database (flightctl), created according to your organization’s RPO. Alternatively, schedule a maintenance window to create the backup before you upgrade.

Procedure

  1. Back up Red Hat Edge Manager on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux host before you change packages. Use Back up the full server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (flightctl-backup), or follow Backing up the PostgreSQL database for Red Hat Edge Manager on Red Hat Enterprise Linux if your runbook covers the database only.
  2. SSH into your Red Hat Enterprise Linux host.
  3. Authenticate to the Red Hat Container Registry if you are not already logged in. Enter your Red Hat Customer Portal credentials when prompted. Without a valid registry login, services can fail to pull updated images after the package upgrade even when dnf completes successfully. 
    sudo podman login registry.redhat.io
  4. Enable the content repositories for the Red Hat Edge Manager release you are upgrading to. Run a command that follows the pattern in the following example, replacing the placeholders with the repository identifiers that match your target release, Red Hat Enterprise Linux version, and system architecture: 
    sudo subscription-manager repos --enable edge-manager-<release>-for-rhel-<major_version>-<architecture>-rpms
  5. List available versions of the flightctl-services package in your enabled repositories: 
    sudo dnf repoquery --showduplicates flightctl-services
  6. Upgrade the Red Hat Edge Manager services package: 
    sudo dnf upgrade -y flightctl-services
    Note

    You do not need to stop Flight Control services before this step. The supported upgrade path applies database migrations while services might still be running older versions during the transition.
  7. Restart Flight Control so all units run the upgraded software: 
    sudo systemctl restart flightctl.target
  8. Verify that the required services are active: 
    sudo systemctl list-units flightctl-*.service

    Ensure that all listed services show a status of active, including flightctl-gateway.service when your target release includes the standalone HTTPS gateway. Some units are one-time initialization tasks and correctly display active(exited); persistent services display active(running). For more information, see Additional resources.

    If you upgraded from a release that exposed multiple HTTPS ports, update clients to use port 443. Complete Migrating to the standalone HTTPS gateway when you are ready to retire legacy ports.

  9. Optional: If you installed the Flight Control CLI from the RPM, upgrade it to match the server: 
    sudo dnf upgrade -y flightctl-cli

    If Operators in your organization previously wrote Catalog or CatalogItem resources directly, review Restoring catalog write access for Operator accounts after you upgrade.

Results

  • sudo systemctl list-units flightctl-*.service shows all required services as active.
  • flightctl version reports the expected server version after you authenticate.
  • The web UI is reachable at https://<baseDomain>/ on port 443.

If services do not run correctly after the upgrade, use the following command, replacing <impacted_service> with the unit name:

sudo journalctl -u <impacted_service> -b --no-pager