Does Zabbix Proxy work with earlier version of Server (Proxy 6.x with Server 5.x )

[sdamian]

Hello, all.
I have an installation with 12 proxies running on different (customers') sites.
Server and Proxies are version 5.4 and I have to upgrade to version 6.
I cannot afford the downtime required to upgrade ALL proxies before starting up Server in version 6.
I see that Proxy v5 will not connect to Server v6 any longer, so what is the upgrade path?
Does Proxy v6 connect to Server v5? Then I could upgrade proxies first and server afterwards.
Has anyone else faced the same issue?

Thanks!

[Markku]

Hi, Zabbix proxies are only compatible with the Zabbix servers in the same major release. That is, proxy 6.0 is not compatible with server 5.4. You have to upgrade them all at the same maintenance window.

Provided that the underlying OS is new enough, upgrading one proxy doesn't take more than a few minutes even when executing manually (even faster when using some kind of script or tooling).

Last time I did the 5 to 6 upgrade I upgraded the proxies while the server was upgrading itself (did the optional database enhancements then, it took some while).

All in all it is good to develop a good workbook for configuring and upgrading a proxy, then it is a quick operation every time going forward.

Markku

[cyber]

Might be quick, if you don't have to change platform, ie RH7 to RH8 also... Can be prepared for this, but it will take more steps to consider.