Manual Upgrades
You can upgrade K3s by using the installation script, or by manually installing the binary of the desired version.
When upgrading, upgrade server nodes first one at a time, then any agent nodes.
Release Channels
Upgrades performed via the installation script or using our automated upgrades feature can be tied to different release channels. The following channels are available:
| Channel | Description |
|---|---|
| stable | (Default) Stable is recommended for production environments. These releases have been through a period of community hardening. |
| latest | Latest is recommended for trying out the latest features. These releases have not yet been through a period of community hardening. |
| v1.26 (example) | There is a release channel tied to each Kubernetes minor version, including versions that are end-of-life. These channels will select the latest patch available, not necessarily a stable release. |
For an exhaustive and up-to-date list of channels, you can visit the k3s channel service API. For more technical details on how channels work, you see the channelserver project.
When attempting to upgrade to a new version of K3s, the Kubernetes version skew policy applies. Ensure that your plan does not skip intermediate minor versions when upgrading. The system-upgrade-controller itself will not protect against unsupported changes to the Kubernetes version.
Upgrade K3s Using the Installation Script
To upgrade K3s from an older version you can re-run the installation script using the same flags, for example:
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -
This will upgrade to a newer version in the stable channel by default.
If you want to upgrade to a newer version in a specific channel (such as latest) you can specify the channel:
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | INSTALL_K3S_CHANNEL=latest sh -
If you want to upgrade to a specific version you can run the following command:
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | INSTALL_K3S_VERSION=vX.Y.Z-rc1 sh -
Manually Upgrade K3s Using the Binary
Or to manually upgrade K3s:
- Download the desired version of the K3s binary from releases
- Copy the downloaded binary to
/usr/local/bin/k3s(or your desired location) - Stop the old k3s binary
- Launch the new k3s binary
Restarting K3s
Restarting K3s is supported by the installation script for systemd and OpenRC.
systemd
To restart servers manually:
sudo systemctl restart k3s
To restart agents manually:
sudo systemctl restart k3s-agent
OpenRC
To restart servers manually:
sudo service k3s restart
To restart agents manually:
sudo service k3s-agent restart