Upgrading to ArangoDB 2.8

Please note first that a database directory used with ArangoDB 2.8cannot be used with earlier versions (e.g. ArangoDB 2.7) anymore. Upgrading a database directory cannot be reverted. Thereforeplease make sure to create a full backup of your existing ArangoDBinstallation before performing an upgrade.

ArangoDB will perform a database version check at startup. When ArangoDB 2.8encounters a database created with earlier versions of ArangoDB, it will refuseto start. This is intentional.

The output will then look like this:

To make ArangoDB 2.8 start with a database directory created with an earlierArangoDB version, you may need to invoke the upgrade procedure once. This canbe done by running ArangoDB from the command line and supplying the option.

Note: here the same database should be specified that is also specified whenarangod is started regularly. Please do not run the —upgrade command on eachindividual database subfolder (named database-<some number>).

For example, if you regularly start your ArangoDB server with

unix> arangod mydatabasefolder

then running

will perform the upgrade for the whole ArangoDB instance, including all of itsdatabases.

The last line of the output should look like this:

2015-12-04T17:12:15Z [31558] INFO database upgrade passed

Please check the full output the —upgrade run. Upgrading may produce errors, which needto be fixed before ArangoDB can be used properly. If no errors are present orthey have been resolved manually, you can start ArangoDB 2.8 regularly.

A cluster of ArangoDB instances has to be upgraded as well. Thisinvolves upgrading all ArangoDB instances in the cluster, as well asrunning the version check on the whole running cluster in the end.

We have tried to make this procedure as painless and convenient for you.We assume that you planned, launched and administrated a cluster using thegraphical front end in your browser. The upgrade procedure is then asfollows:

• First shut down your cluster using the graphical front end asusual.

• Then upgrade all dispatcher instances on all machines in yourcluster using the version check as described above and restart them.

• Hit this button, your cluster will be upgraded and launched andall is done for you behind the scenes. If all goes well, you willsee the usual cluster dash board after a few seconds. If there is an error, you have to inspect the log files of your clusterArangoDB instances. Please let us know if you run into problems.

This upgrades the cluster and launches it, exactly as with the button above in the graphical front end. You have to replace "root" witha user name and "" with a password that is valid for authenticationwith the cluster.

The implementation of the require function used to import modules inArangoDB and Foxx in order to improve compatibility with Node.js modules.

Given an app/service with the following layout:

• manifest.json
• controllers/
  • todos.js
• models/
  • todo.js
• repositories/
• node_modules/
  • models/
    • todo.js

The file controllers/todos.js would previously contain the followingrequire calls:

var _ = require('underscore');
var joi = require('joi');
var Foxx = require('org/arangodb/foxx');
var Todo = require('models/todo'); // <-- !

The require paths repositories/todos and models/todo were previouslyresolved locally as relative to the app root.

Starting with 2.8 these paths would instead be resolved as relative tothe node_modules folder or the global ArangoDB module paths before beingresolved locally as a fallback.

In the given example layout the app would break in 2.8 because the modulename models/todo would always resolve to node_modules/models/todo.js(which previously would have been ignored) instead of the local models/todo.js.

In order to make sure the app still works in 2.8, the require calls in would need to be adjusted to look like this: