Upgrade on Kubernetes

This guide will help you upgrade your OpenMetadata Kubernetes Application with automated helm hooks.

Requirements

This guide assumes that you have an OpenMetadata deployment that you installed and configured following the Kubernetes Deployment guide. We also assume that your helm chart release names are openmetadata and openmetadata-dependencies and namespace used is default.

Prerequisites

Everytime that you plan on upgrading OpenMetadata to a newer version, make sure to go over all these steps:

Backup your Metadata

Before upgrading your OpenMetadata version we strongly recommend backing up the metadata. The source of truth is stored in the underlying database (MySQL and Postgres supported). During each version upgrade there is a database migration process that needs to run. It will directly attack your database and update the shape of the data to the newest OpenMetadata release. It is important that we backup the data because if we face any unexpected issues during the upgrade process, you will be able to get back to the previous version without any loss.

You can learn more about how the migration process works here.During the upgrade, please note that the backup is only for safety and should not be used to restore data to a higher version.

Since version 1.4.0, OpenMetadata encourages using the builtin-tools for creating logical backups of the metadata:

mysqldump for MySQL
pg_dump for Postgres

For PROD deployment we recommend users to rely on cloud services for their databases, be it AWS RDS, Azure SQL or GCP Cloud SQL. If you’re a user of these services, you can leverage their backup capabilities directly:

You can refer to the following guide to get more details about the backup and restore:

Backup Metadata

Learn how to back up MySQL or Postgres data.

Understanding the “Running” State in OpenMetadata

In OpenMetadata, the “Running” state indicates that the OpenMetadata server has received a response from Airflow confirming that a workflow is in progress. However, if Airflow unexpectedly stops or crashes before it can send a failure status update through the Failure Callback, OpenMetadata remains unaware of the workflow’s actual state. As a result, the workflow may appear to be stuck in “Running” even though it is no longer executing. This situation can also occur during an OpenMetadata upgrade. If an ingestion pipeline was running at the time of the upgrade and the process caused Airflow to shut down, OpenMetadata would not receive any further updates from Airflow. Consequently, the pipeline status remains “Running” indefinitely.

Expected Steps to Resolve

To resolve this issue:

Ensure that Airflow is restarted properly after an unexpected shutdown.
Manually update the pipeline status if necessary.
Check Airflow logs to verify if the DAG execution was interrupted.

Update `sort_buffer_size` (MySQL) or `work_mem` (Postgres)

Before running the migrations, it is important to update these parameters to ensure there are no runtime errors. A safe value would be setting them to 20MB. If using MySQL You can update it via SQL (note that it will reset after the server restarts):

SET GLOBAL sort_buffer_size = 20971520

To make the configuration persistent, you’d need to navigate to your MySQL Server install directory and update the my.ini or my.cnf files with sort_buffer_size = 20971520. If using RDS, you will need to update your instance’s Parameter Group to include the above change. If using Postgres You can update it via SQL (not that it will reset after the server restarts):

SET work_mem = '20MB';

To make the configuration persistent, you’ll need to update the postgresql.conf file with work_mem = 20MB. If using RDS, you will need to update your instance’s Parameter Group to include the above change. Note that this value would depend on the size of your query_entity table. If you still see Out of Sort Memory Errors during the migration after bumping this value, you can increase them further. After the migration is finished, you can revert this changes.

Breaking Changes

Ingestion Framework: All workflows have integrated the workflow.print_status() inside the workflow.execute() call. This change was needed to better handle logger lifecycles. If you’re using the Ingestion Framework directly to manage workflows via the usual process:

workflow_config = yaml.safe_load(CONFIG)
workflow = MetadataWorkflow.create(workflow_config)
workflow.execute()
workflow.raise_from_status()
workflow.print_status()  # Not necessary anymore
workflow.stop()

You can now remove the print_status() call. Note that the only side effect would be temporarily getting duplicated summary logs.

Changed field from status to entityStatus for glossaryTerm and dataContract, as we introduce it for different data assets.
For Data Contracts, the value also changed from Active to Approved.

MySQL Configuration Required for Airflow 3.x Migration

If you are using MySQL as your Airflow metadata database and upgrading to Airflow 3.x (the new default in OpenMetadata 1.11), you must configure MySQL to allow temporary stored function creation during the migration process.

Root Cause

During the Airflow 3.x database migration on MySQL, Airflow needs to create a temporary stored function (uuid_generate_v7) to backfill UUIDs for the task_instance table. When MySQL runs with binary logging enabled (which is the default in most production setups), it blocks function creation unless log_bin_trust_function_creators is enabled or the user has SUPER privileges. Without this configuration, the migration fails with an error like:

FUNCTION airflow_db.uuid_generate_v7 does not exist

This is a known limitation when running Airflow 3.x migrations on MySQL with binary logging enabled. PostgreSQL users are not affected by this issue. For more details, see the Apache Airflow issues:

Resolution

Option 1: Delete and Recreate the Airflow Database (Strongly Recommended) The simplest and most reliable solution is to delete the existing Airflow database and let OpenMetadata recreate it fresh during startup. The Airflow database only stores workflow execution history and metadata—it does not contain any of your OpenMetadata configurations, connections, or ingestion pipeline definitions.

This is the recommended approach because it avoids all migration complexities and ensures a clean state. Your ingestion pipelines and their configurations are stored in the OpenMetadata database, not in Airflow’s database.

# Connect to your MySQL instance and drop the Airflow database
docker exec -i openmetadata_mysql mysql -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD -e "DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS airflow_db;"

Then recreate the database with the proper character set and grant privileges:

CREATE DATABASE airflow_db CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON airflow_db.* TO 'airflow_user'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Execute this via command line:

# Recreate the Airflow database
docker exec -i openmetadata_mysql mysql -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD -e "CREATE DATABASE airflow_db CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON airflow_db.* TO 'airflow_user'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;"

# Restart the ingestion container to run migrations on the fresh database
docker restart openmetadata_ingestion

Replace USERNAME and PASSWORD with your MySQL root credentials, and airflow_user with your actual Airflow database user if different. For Docker Quickstart deployments, the default root credentials are root / password.

Option 2: Manual Migration Fix (If You Cannot Delete the Database) If you have specific requirements to preserve the Airflow execution history and cannot delete the database, follow the manual steps below. Step 1: Enable MySQL Configuration First, enable log_bin_trust_function_creators in your MySQL instance to allow Airflow to create the necessary stored function: For Docker deployments, add this to your docker-compose.yml file under the MySQL service:

services:
  mysql:
    command: "--log-bin-trust-function-creators=1"

For standalone MySQL instances, execute this query as a user with sufficient privileges:

SET GLOBAL log_bin_trust_function_creators = 1;

Step 2: Clean Airflow Database After enabling the MySQL configuration, choose one of the following options based on your situation: Option 2a: Truncate Task Instance Table If you want to avoid conflicting migration changes, you can truncate the task_instance table. This approach removes all task execution history but preserves your DAGs and connections.

This will delete all historical task execution data. Only use this if you’re okay with losing task run history.

-- Clean task_instance table to avoid migration conflicts
USE airflow_db;

-- Truncate task_instance table
TRUNCATE TABLE task_instance;

-- Verify the table is empty
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM task_instance;

Execute this script:

# Run the cleanup script on your MySQL container
docker exec -i openmetadata_mysql mysql -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD -e "USE airflow_db; TRUNCATE TABLE task_instance; SELECT COUNT(*) as remaining_rows FROM task_instance;"

# Restart the ingestion container to apply migrations
docker restart openmetadata_ingestion

Option 2b: Fix Stuck Migrations (If Migration Already Failed) If your migration is already stuck midway (the task_instance table was partially modified), you need to reset the migration state before restarting. Save the following SQL script as fix_airflow_migration.sql:

-- Fix Airflow 3.x migration issue
-- This script fixes the partial migration of task_instance table

USE airflow_db;

-- Check if the migration was partially applied
-- If 'id' column exists but isn't properly configured, we need to fix it

-- First, check the current state
SHOW COLUMNS FROM task_instance LIKE 'id';

-- Drop the problematic column if it exists
SET @exist := (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM information_schema.COLUMNS
    WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'airflow_db'
    AND TABLE_NAME = 'task_instance'
    AND COLUMN_NAME = 'id');

SET @sqlstmt := IF(@exist > 0,
    'ALTER TABLE task_instance DROP COLUMN id',
    'SELECT ''Column does not exist'' AS status');

PREPARE stmt FROM @sqlstmt;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

-- Reset the alembic version to before this migration
-- The migration that's failing is: d59cbbef95eb (Add UUID primary key to task_instance)
-- We need to set it back to the previous version: 05234396c6fc
UPDATE alembic_version SET version_num = '05234396c6fc' WHERE version_num = 'd59cbbef95eb';

-- Verify the changes
SELECT * FROM alembic_version;
SHOW COLUMNS FROM task_instance LIKE 'id';

Then execute the script and restart the container:

# Run the fix script on your MySQL container
docker exec -i openmetadata_mysql mysql -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD < fix_airflow_migration.sql

# Restart the ingestion container
docker restart openmetadata_ingestion

Replace USERNAME and PASSWORD with your actual MySQL credentials, and ensure the database name matches your configuration (default is airflow_db).

Upgrade Process

Step 1: Get an overview of what has changed in Helm Values

You can get changes from artifact hub of openmetadata helm chart release. Click on Default Values >> Compare to Version.

Step 2: Upgrade Helm Repository with a new release

Update Helm Chart Locally for OpenMetadata with the below command:

helm repo update open-metadata

It will result in the below output on screen.

Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Successfully got an update from the "open-metadata" chart repository
Update Complete. ⎈Happy Helming!⎈

Verify with the below command to see the latest release available locally.

helm search repo open-metadata --versions
> NAME                                   	CHART VERSION	APP VERSION	DESCRIPTION
open-metadata/openmetadata              1.3.1           1.3.1           A Helm chart for OpenMetadata on Kubernetes
open-metadata/openmetadata              1.2.8           1.2.5           A Helm chart for OpenMetadata on Kubernetes

...
open-metadata/openmetadata-dependencies 1.3.1           1.3.1           Helm Dependencies for OpenMetadata
open-metadata/openmetadata-dependencies 1.2.8           1.2.5           Helm Dependencies for OpenMetadata
...

Step 3: Upgrade OpenMetadata Dependencies

You can run the below command to upgrade the dependencies with the new chart

helm upgrade openmetadata-dependencies open-metadata/openmetadata-dependencies

The above command uses configurations defined here. You can modify any configuration and deploy by passing your own values.yaml.

Make sure that, when using your own values.yaml, you are not overwriting elements such as the image of the containers. This would prevent your new deployment to use the latest containers when running the upgrade.If you are running into any issues, double-check what are the default values of the helm revision.

Step 4: Upgrade OpenMetadata

Finally, we upgrade OpenMetadata with the below command:

helm upgrade openmetadata open-metadata/openmetadata

You might need to pass your own values.yaml with the --values flag. Note that in every version upgrade there is a migration process that updates your database to the newest version. For kubernetes, this process will happen automatically as an upgrade hook.

You can learn more about how the migration process works here.

Post-Upgrade Steps

Reindex

With UI

Go to Settings -> Applications -> Search Indexing

Before initiating the process by clicking Run Now, ensure that the Recreate Indexes option is enabled to allow rebuilding the indexes as needed. In the configuration section, you can select the entities you want to reindex.

Since this is required after the upgrade, we want to reindex All the entities.

(Optional) Update your OpenMetadata Ingestion Client

If you are running the ingestion workflows externally or using a custom Airflow installation, you need to make sure that the Python Client you use is aligned with the OpenMetadata server version. For example, if you are upgrading the server to the version x.y.z, you will need to update your client with

pip install openmetadata-ingestion[<plugin>]==x.y.z

With Kubernetes

Follow these steps to reindex using the CLI:

List the CronJobs Use the following command to check the available CronJobs:

kubectl get cronjobs

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

kubectl get cronjobs
NAME                    SCHEDULE      TIMEZONE   SUSPEND   ACTIVE   LAST SCHEDULE   AGE
cron-reindex            0/5 * * * *   <none>     True      0        <none>          31m

Create a Job from a CronJob Create a one-time job from an existing CronJob using the following command:

kubectl create job --from=cronjob/cron-deploy-pipelines <job_name>

Replace <job_name> with the actual name of the job.

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

kubectl create job --from=cronjob/cron-reindex cron-reindex-one
job.batch/cron-reindex-one created

Check the Job Status Verify the status of the created job with:

kubectl get jobs

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

kubectl get jobs
NAME                       STATUS     COMPLETIONS   DURATION   AGE
cron-reindex-one           Complete   1/1           20s        109s

view logs To view the logs use the below command.

kubectl logs job/<job_name>

Replace <job_name> with the actual job name.

The plugin parameter is a list of the sources that we want to ingest. An example would look like this openmetadata-ingestion[mysql,snowflake,s3]==1.2.0. You will find specific instructions for each connector in the Connectors section. Moreover, if working with your own Airflow deployment - not the openmetadata-ingestion image - you will need to upgrade as well the openmetadata-managed-apis version:

pip install openmetadata-managed-apis==x.y.z

Re Deploy Ingestion Pipelines

With UI

Go to Settings -> {Services} -> {Databases} -> Pipelines

Select the pipelines you want to Re Deploy click Re Deploy.

With Kubernetes

Follow these steps to deploy pipelines using the CLI:

List the CronJobs Use the following command to check the available CronJobs:

kubectl get cronjobs

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

kubectl get cronjobs
NAME                    SCHEDULE      TIMEZONE   SUSPEND   ACTIVE   LAST SCHEDULE   AGE
cron-deploy-pipelines   0/5 * * * *   <none>     True      0        <none>          4m7s

Create a Job from a CronJob Create a one-time job from an existing CronJob using the following command:

kubectl create job --from=cronjob/cron-reindex <job_name>

Replace <job_name> with the actual name of the job.

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

kubectl create job --from=cronjob/cron-deploy-pipelines cron-deploy-pipeline-one
job.batch/cron-deploy-pipeline-one created

Check the Job Status Verify the status of the created job with:

kubectl get jobs

Upon running this command you should see output similar to the following.

kubectl get jobs
NAME                       STATUS     COMPLETIONS   DURATION   AGE
cron-deploy-pipeline-one   Complete   1/1           13s        3m35s

view logs To view the logs use the below command.

kubectl logs job/<job_name>

Replace <job_name> with the actual job name.

If you are seeing broken dags select all the pipelines from all the services and re deploy the pipelines.

Openmetadata-ops Script

Overview

The openmetadata-ops script is designed to manage and migrate databases and search indexes, reindex existing data into Elastic Search or OpenSearch, and redeploy service pipelines.

Usage

sh openmetadata-ops.sh [-dhV] [COMMAND]

Commands

analyze-tables

Migrates secrets from the database to the configured Secrets Manager. Note that this command does not support migrating between external Secrets Managers.

changelog

Prints the change log of database migration.

check-connection

Checks if a connection can be successfully obtained for the target database.

deploy-pipelines

Deploys all the service pipelines.

drop-create

Deletes any tables in the configured database and creates new tables based on the current version of OpenMetadata. This command also re-creates the search indexes.

info

Shows the list of migrations applied and the pending migrations waiting to be applied on the target database.

migrate

Migrates the OpenMetadata database schema and search index mappings.

migrate-secrets

Migrates secrets from the database to the configured Secrets Manager. Note that this command does not support migrating between external Secrets Managers.

reindex

Reindexes data into the search engine from the command line.

repair

Repairs the DATABASE_CHANGE_LOG table, which is used to track all the migrations on the target database. This involves removing entries for the failed migrations and updating the checksum of migrations already applied on the target database.

validate

Checks if all the migrations have been applied on the target database.

Examples

Display Help To display the help message:

sh openmetadata-ops.sh --help

Migrate Database Schema

To migrate the database schema and search index mappings:

sh openmetadata-ops.sh migrate

Reindex Data

To reindex data into the search engine:

sh openmetadata-ops.sh reindex

Troubleshooting

Helm Upgrade fails with additional property airflow not allowed

With Release 1.0.0, if you see your helm charts failing to deploy with the below issue -

Error: INSTALLATION FAILED: values don't meet the specifications of the schema(s) in the following chart(s):
openmetadata:
- global: Additional property airflow is not allowed

This means the values passed to the helm charts has a section global.airflow. Airflow configs are replaced with pipelineServiceClient for Helm Charts. The Helm Chart Values JSON Schema helps to catch the above breaking changes and this section will help you resolve and update your configurations for the same. You can read more about JSON Schema with Helm Charts here. You will need to update the existing section of global.airflow values to match the new configurations. ⛔ Before 1.0.0 Helm Chart Release, the global.airflow section would be like -

global:
  ...
  airflow:
    enabled: true
    # endpoint url for airflow
    host: http://openmetadata-dependencies-web.default.svc.cluster.local:8080
    # possible values are "no-ssl", "ignore", "validate"
    verifySsl: "no-ssl"
    # Local path in Airflow Pod
    sslCertificatePath: "/no/path"
    auth:
      username: admin
      password:
        secretRef: airflow-secrets
        secretKey: openmetadata-airflow-password
    openmetadata:
      # this will be the api endpoint url of OpenMetadata Server
      serverHostApiUrl: "http://openmetadata.default.svc.cluster.local:8585/api"
...

✅ After 1.0.0 Helm Chart Release, the global.pipelineServiceClient section will replace the above airflow section -

openmetadata:
  config:
    ...
    pipelineServiceClientConfig:
      enabled: true
      className: "org.openmetadata.service.clients.pipeline.airflow.AirflowRESTClient"
      # endpoint url for airflow
      apiEndpoint: http://openmetadata-dependencies-web.default.svc.cluster.local:8080
      # this will be the api endpoint url of OpenMetadata Server
      metadataApiEndpoint: http://openmetadata.default.svc.cluster.local:8585/api
      # possible values are "no-ssl", "ignore", "validate"
      verifySsl: "no-ssl"
      ingestionIpInfoEnabled: false
      # local path in Airflow Pod
      sslCertificatePath: "/no/path"
      auth:
        username: admin
        password:
          secretRef: airflow-secrets
          secretKey: openmetadata-airflow-password
  ...
...

Run the helm lint command on your custom values after making the changes to validate with the JSON Schema.

MySQL Pod fails on Upgrade

This issue will only occur if you are using openmetadata-dependencies helm chart version 0.0.49 and 0.0.50 and upgrading to latest helm chart release.

If your helm dependencies upgrade fails with the below command result -

Startup probe failed: mysqladmin: [Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure. mysqladmin:
connect to server at 'localhost' failed error: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/opt/bitnami/mysql/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)'
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: '/opt/bitnami/mysql/tmp/mysql.sock' exists!

This issue is related to a minor change that affected the MySQL Database Engine version upgrade from 8.0.28 to 8.0.29 for the Helm Chart Release 0.0.49 and 0.0.50. Then the registry url was updated as we found a work around to fetch previous versions of bitnami/mysql Helm Releases. As a result of the above fixes, anyone who is on OpenMetadata Dependencies Helm Chart Version 0.0.49 and 0.0.50 is affected with the above issue when upgrading for mysql. In order to fix this issue, make sure to follow the below steps -

Backup the Database using Metadata Backup CLI as mentioned here
Uninstall OpenMetadata Dependencies Helm Chart (helm uninstall openmetadata-dependencies)
Remove the unmanaged volume for MySQL Stateful Set Kubernetes Object (kubectl delete pvc data-mysql-0)
Install the latest version of OpenMetadata Dependencies Helm Chart
Restore the Database using Metadata Restore CLI as mentioned here
Next, Proceed with upgrade for OpenMetadata Helm Chart as mentioned here

Deployment

​Upgrade on Kubernetes

​Requirements

​Prerequisites

​Backup your Metadata

Backup Metadata

​Understanding the “Running” State in OpenMetadata

​Expected Steps to Resolve

​Update sort_buffer_size (MySQL) or work_mem (Postgres)

​Breaking Changes

​MySQL Configuration Required for Airflow 3.x Migration

​Root Cause

​Resolution

​Upgrade Process

​Step 1: Get an overview of what has changed in Helm Values

​Step 2: Upgrade Helm Repository with a new release

​Step 3: Upgrade OpenMetadata Dependencies

​Step 4: Upgrade OpenMetadata

​Post-Upgrade Steps

​Reindex

​With UI

​(Optional) Update your OpenMetadata Ingestion Client

​With Kubernetes

​Re Deploy Ingestion Pipelines

​With UI

​With Kubernetes

​Openmetadata-ops Script

​Overview

​Usage

​Commands

​Examples

​Migrate Database Schema

​Reindex Data

​Troubleshooting

​Helm Upgrade fails with additional property airflow not allowed

​MySQL Pod fails on Upgrade

Upgrade on Kubernetes

Requirements

Prerequisites

Backup your Metadata

Understanding the “Running” State in OpenMetadata

Expected Steps to Resolve

Update `sort_buffer_size` (MySQL) or `work_mem` (Postgres)

Breaking Changes

MySQL Configuration Required for Airflow 3.x Migration

Root Cause

Resolution

Upgrade Process

Step 1: Get an overview of what has changed in Helm Values

Step 2: Upgrade Helm Repository with a new release

Step 3: Upgrade OpenMetadata Dependencies

Step 4: Upgrade OpenMetadata

Post-Upgrade Steps

Reindex

With UI

(Optional) Update your OpenMetadata Ingestion Client

With Kubernetes

Re Deploy Ingestion Pipelines

With UI

With Kubernetes

Openmetadata-ops Script

Overview

Usage

Commands

Examples

Migrate Database Schema

Reindex Data

Troubleshooting

Helm Upgrade fails with additional property airflow not allowed

MySQL Pod fails on Upgrade