Upgrade OpenEverest using Helm¶

ACTION REQUIRED: OpenEverest and Bitnami Container Catalog changes

Bitnami is restructuring its container catalog on September 29, 2025. To avoid potential failures in OpenEverest operations, follow the steps outlined in this post.

OpenEverest consistently delivers updates that includes bug fixes, security enhancements, and various improvements designed to optimize the overall performance of your database.

Before you upgrade¶

Important

Upgrade one minor release at a time to avoid unexpected issues. Start by updating to the latest patch release before moving on to the next minor release.
For a safe upgrade, we perform a pre-upgrade hook that runs a series of checks. You can disable this by setting upgrade.preflightChecks=false, but doing so means a safe upgrade cannot be assured.

Prepare for upgrading to version 1.7.0¶

Before you upgrade to OpenEverest version 1.7.0, run the following command:

kubectl label namespaces everest-system app.kubernetes.io/managed-by-

Migrate from the Percona Helm repository¶

If you originally installed OpenEverest using the percona Helm repository, you need to perform a one-time migration to switch your existing releases to the new openeverest repository. This does not reinstall OpenEverest — it simply re-associates your existing Helm releases with the new chart source while preserving all your current configuration.

To migrate, run the following commands:

Add the new OpenEverest Helm repository:

helm repo add openeverest https://openeverest.github.io/helm-charts/

Update your local Helm repository cache:
```
helm repo update
```
Upgrade each release to use the chart from the new repository.

Upgrade the core components release:
```
helm upgrade everest-core openeverest/openeverest \
  --namespace everest-system \
  --reuse-values
```
If you have one or more database namespace releases, upgrade each one:
```
helm upgrade <RELEASE_NAME> openeverest/everest-db-namespace \
  --namespace <DB_NAMESPACE> \
  --reuse-values
```
Replace <RELEASE_NAME> and <DB_NAMESPACE> with your actual release name and namespace. To list all your current releases, run helm list --all-namespaces.
(Optional) Remove the old Percona Helm repository once all releases have been migrated:
```
helm repo remove percona
```

Upgrade CRDs¶

In Helm v3, CRDs are not updated automatically during a Helm upgrade. You need to upgrade the CRDs manually.

To update the CRDs, run the following command:

helm repo update
helm upgrade --install everest-crds \
    openeverest/everest-crds \
    --namespace everest-system \
    --take-ownership

Upgrading with Helm versions prior to 3.17.0¶

If you upgrade from OpenEverest 1.8.0 and use a Helm version older than 3.17.0, the --take-ownership flag will not be available. Without this flag, you may encounter the following validation errors related to missing ownership metadata:

invalid ownership metadata; label validation error: missing key "app.kubernetes.io/managed-by": must be set to "Helm";
annotation validation error: missing key "meta.helm.sh/release-name": must be set to "everest-crds";
annotation validation error: missing key "meta.helm.sh/release-namespace": must be set to "everest-system"

Workaround for Helm versions older than 3.17.0¶

If you must use a Helm version older than 3.17.0, you can manually simulate the behavior of --take-ownership by adding the required labels and annotations to the Everest CRDs:

CRDS=(databaseclusters.everest.percona.com              databaseengines.everest.percona.com databaseclusterbackups.everest.percona.com databaseclusterrestores.everest.percona.com backupstorages.everest.percona.com monitoringconfigs.everest.percona.com)
kubectl label crds "${CRDS[@]}" app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=Helm --overwrite
kubectl annotate crds "${CRDS[@]}" meta.helm.sh/release-name=everest-crds
kubectl annotate crds "${CRDS[@]}" meta.helm.sh/release-namespace=everest-system

This ensures the CRDs are correctly recognized as managed by Helm, avoiding validation issues during the upgrade.

Upgrade Helm releases¶

Warning

When using helm upgrade, specifying --set (or other equivalent flags) causes Helm to revert all other values to the defaults defined in the chart. To avoid this issue, either include the --reuse-values flag or provide the complete set of values, including those used during the installation.

To upgrade OpenEverest using Helm, run the following commands:

Upgrade the Helm release for Everest (core components).

helm upgrade everest-core openeverest/openeverest --namespace everest-system --version "$VERSION"

where,

VERSION is the OpenEverest version you wish to upgrade to.

Upgrade the Helm release for the database namespace (if applicable):
```
helm upgrade everest openeverest/everest-db-namespace --namespace <DB namespace> --version "$VERSION"
```
where,

VERSION is the OpenEverest version you wish to upgrade to.

DB namespace is the namespace you wish to upgrade.