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How to Upgrade microk8s for Single Node Installations

microk8s in Single Node Installations

For Element On-Premise and Element Enterprise On-Premise, we offer a multi-node installer and a single-node installer. In our single-node installations, we install Canonical's microk8s, a lightweight distribution of kubernetes. We then use this installation to deploy our software via our kubernetes operator. All of this is managed by our installer.

That said, we do not handle the upgrading of existing microk8s installations with the installer. This document details how to upgrade microk8s when needed. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Element Support.

Upgrading microk8s

The first step in upgrading microk8s to the latest version deployed by the installer is to remove the existing microk8s installation. Given that all of microk8s is managed by a snap, we can do this without worrying about our Element Enterprise On-Premise installation. The important data for your installation is all stored outside of the snap space and will not be impacted by removing microk8s. Start by running:

sudo snap list

and just determine that microk8s is installed:

[user@element2 element-enterprise-installer-2022-05.06]$ sudo snap list
Name      Version    Rev    Tracking     Publisher   Notes
core      16-2.55.5  13250  -            canonical✓  core
core18    20220428   2409   -            canonical✓  base
microk8s  v1.21.13    3410   1.21/stable  canonical✓  classic

Once you've made sure that microk8s is installed, remove it by running:

sudo snap remove microk8s

Now at this point, you should be able to verify that microk8s is no longer installed by running:

sudo snap list

and getting output similar to:

[user@element2 element-enterprise-installer-2022-05.06]$ sudo snap list
Name      Version    Rev    Tracking     Publisher   Notes
core      16-2.55.5  13250  -            canonical✓  core
core18    20220428   2409   -            canonical✓  base

Now that you no longer have microk8s installed, you are ready to run the latest installer. Once you run the latest installer, it will install the latest version of microk8s.

When the installer finishes, you should see an upgraded version of microk8s installed if you run sudo snap list similar to:

Name      Version   Rev    Tracking       Publisher   Notes
core18    20220706  2538   latest/stable  canonical✓  base
microk8s  v1.24.3   3597   1.24/stable    canonical✓  classic
snapd     2.56.2    16292  latest/stable  canonical✓  snapd

At this point, you will need to reboot the server to restore proper networking into the microk8s cluster. After a reboot, wait for your pods to start and your Element Enterprise On-Premise installation is now running a later version of microk8s.

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