Upgrade the Operator and the database on OpenShift¶

Upgrade the Operator via Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM)¶

You can upgrade the Operator for PostgreSQL that was installed on the OpenShift platform using OLM directly through the Operator Lifecycle Manager.

Before you start¶

You must manually update the initContainer.image Custom Resource option for each PostgreSQL cluster managed by the Operator. Without this, clusters may enter an error state after the Operator upgrade.

Follow these steps to upgrade the initContainer.image:

Export the namespace as environment variable
```
export NAMESPACE=postgres-operator
```

Retrieve the current Operator installation image used for initContainer by running:

kubectl get deploy percona-postgresql-operator -n $NAMESPACE -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[*].image}'

Find the image value in the relevant section of the output, for example:

registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator@sha256:986941a8c5f5d00a0c9cc7bd12acc9f78aa51fdcc98c7d0acddff05392d4b9a0

Update your PostgreSQL cluster’s Custom Resource with the image you found above, replacing cluster1 with your cluster name:
```
kubectl patch pg cluster1 -n $NAMESPACE --type=merge --patch '{
    "spec": {
      "initContainer": { "image": "<IMAGE_FROM_STEP_2>" }
    }}'
```
Repeat this command for each cluster managed by the Operator.

Upgrade the Operator¶

Log in to the OpenShift web console and check the list of installed Operators in your namespace to see if upgrades are available.
Click the “Upgrade available” link to review details, click “Preview InstallPlan,” and then click “Approve” to upgrade the Operator.

Upgrade Percona Distribution for PostgreSQL¶

Before you start¶

We recommend to update PMM Server before upgrading PMM Client.
If you are using PMM server version 2, use a PMM client image compatible with PMM 2. If you are using PMM server version 3, use a PMM client image compatible with PMM 3. See PMM upgrade documentation for how to migrate from version 2 to version 3.

Upgrade steps¶

Find the new initial Operator installation image name (it had changed during the Operator upgrade) and other image names for the components of your cluster with the kubectl get deploy command:

kubectl get deploy percona-postgresql-operator -n $NAMESPACE -o yaml

Expected output

{
  "initContainer": {
    "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator@sha256:ae9b319eaf3367f73d135fdda4ce69f58bcb9a2b05eea71903b7d631bd8b56c2"
  },
  "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:2092b8badac196100a70e708e18ef6c70f9f398c99431f3905e8394b9cadd91a",
  ...
  "proxy": {
    "pgBouncer": {
      "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:73916031a5b9a033efdf86597b9df58837336ae208a8743d4c70874d459daeda"
    }
  },
  ...
  "backups": {
    "pgbackrest": {
      "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:5937c9778be5c94acb4be81d979b6e5503f85dea1196f20f435b19467e56d1d0"
    }
  },
  ....
  "pmm": {
    "enabled": false,
    "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:05dc00f69ed0fae48453476ace93bd43c046bf07a511cdca16e2fcad29c53805"
  }
}

Apply a patch to update your cluster’s Custom Resource. Set the crVersion field to match the Operator version and update the images as needed.

Depending if you already updated the PMM client, include its image in the list of images to update in your patch command. Otherwise, exclude the PMM client image from the patch.

If your cluster is named cluster1, use the following command as an example:

=== “With PMM Client”

   ```bash
   kubectl patch pg cluster1 -n $NAMESPACE --type=merge --patch '{
   "spec": {
   "crVersion":"2.8.0",
   "initContainer": { "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator@sha256:ae9b319eaf3367f73d135fdda4ce69f58bcb9a2b05eea71903b7d631bd8b56c2" },
   "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:2092b8badac196100a70e708e18ef6c70f9f398c99431f3905e8394b9cadd91a",
   "proxy": { "pgBouncer": { "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:73916031a5b9a033efdf86597b9df58837336ae208a8743d4c70874d459daeda" } },
   "backups": { "pgbackrest": { "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:5937c9778be5c94acb4be81d979b6e5503f85dea1196f20f435b19467e56d1d0" } },
   "pmm": { "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:05dc00f69ed0fae48453476ace93bd43c046bf07a511cdca16e2fcad29c53805" }
   }}'
   ```

=== "Without PMM Client"

   ```bash
   kubectl patch pg cluster1 -n $NAMESPACE --type=merge --patch '{
   "spec": {
   "crVersion":"2.8.0",
   "initContainer": { "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator@sha256:ae9b319eaf3367f73d135fdda4ce69f58bcb9a2b05eea71903b7d631bd8b56c2" },
   "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:2092b8badac196100a70e708e18ef6c70f9f398c99431f3905e8394b9cadd91a",
   "proxy": { "pgBouncer": { "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:73916031a5b9a033efdf86597b9df58837336ae208a8743d4c70874d459daeda" } },
   "backups": { "pgbackrest": { "image": "registry.connect.redhat.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator-containers@sha256:5937c9778be5c94acb4be81d979b6e5503f85dea1196f20f435b19467e56d1d0" } }
   }}'
   ```

The deployment rollout will be automatically triggered by the applied patch. You can track the rollout process in real time with the kubectl rollout status command with the name of your cluster:
```
kubectl rollout status deployments percona-postgresql-operator -n postgres-operator
```
Expected output
```
deployment "percona-postgresql-operator" successfully rolled out
```

Last update: 2025-11-18