Upgrade zabbix 4.4.4 to zabbix 5

[heba]

Dear All,

Is there any instructions, docs (or best practice) to upgrade zabbix 4.4.4 to zabbix 5

We have currently zabbix 4..4.4 and we have some original zabbix templates + customized ones + templates from zabbix share + scripts

What are the steps to perform the upgrade ?

Thanks,
Heba

[tim.mooney]

Yes, there are upgrade instructions.

They're in the 5.0 Zabbix docs, in the installation chapter.

[heba]

Many thanks...

I checked the documentation...

So, this means that the already defined hosts, templates, scripts etc will not be touched by the upgrade process... Correct ?

Thank you
Heba

[tim.mooney]

The upgrade will preserve your existing hosts, templates, etc. that are stored in the database, but it may "touch" them, because some database tables may get changes to support the new features and improvements in 5.0.x. For example, there may be new fields (columns) added for hosts for some new configuration setting. All of your existing hosts will still be there, but they may be altered to allow for new settings.

As part of the upgrade, when zabbix_server process is first started, it will examine the database to see if the database schema version (which is stored in the database) is the right version for a 5.0.x Zabbix install.

What should happen when upgrading from 4.4.x to 5.0.x is that zabbix_server will notice that the database schema needs to be changed, and it will automatically apply those changes, to alter your database structure to support the features and changes for Zabbix 5.0 LTS. It will keep your hosts and items and the config you rely upon, but it may need to change certain things about them.

You can watch the progress of the database being changed if you examine the zabbix_server.log as zabbix_serverd is first starting up. Something like

tail -f /var/log/zabbix/zabbix_server.log

(assuming that's where your server log file is written to) will show you the progress as zabbix_server converts your database to the structure that is required to be able to run Zabbix 5.0.x

[heba]

Many thanks Tim for your help. I really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Heba