Canaries are designed to keep themselves up to date without requiring you to manually patch or redeploy them.
How are updates delivered?
When a Canary update becomes available, it is delivered remotely through the same DNS-based management channel your Canaries already use to communicate with their Console.
This applies to all Canary types. There is no need to redeploy your Canaries for routine updates.
How does the automatic update process work?
Canary updates are rolled out automatically in small batches rather than updating every Canary at once. For that purpose, up to five Canaries are updated at a time to avoid generating unnecessary network traffic (important in larger deployments).
The Console also performs a daily check for Canaries that have not yet updated and will instruct them to update automatically.
If you would prefer not to wait for the automatic rollout, you can also trigger an available update from your Canary Console:
How long does an update take?
This depends on the size and type of update:
- Minor releases will typically complete within seconds to a few minutes.
- Major releases are larger and can take several hours to complete, and in some cases may take up to a day.
Your Canary needs to remain online while it receives and completes the update.
During the process, you may see the Canary reporting that it is updating. Once complete, the Canary will report its new version to the Console.
Do all Canary types use the same version number?
No, as different Canary platforms use different version families:
Platform |
Version family |
|---|---|
| Hardware | x.1.x |
| VMware | x.2.x |
| AWS EC2 | x.3.x |
| GCP | x.4.x |
| Hyper-V | x.5.x |
| Azure | x.6.x |
| Docker | x.7.x |
| OpenStack | x.8.x |
| Nutanix | x.9.x |
| Oracle OCI | x.10.x |
What happens when an update contains a new feature or fix?
New features, personalities or other improvements may require your Canary to be running the corresponding updated version.
Once the Canary has updated, the relevant functionality becomes available.
Urgent updates or hotfixes are delivered using the same update mechanism. There is no separate patching process that you need to manage.
What if my Canary is not updating?
If your Canary hasn't been able to update automatically, you should see something like this:
If an update or configuration change appears to be getting stuck, see our troubleshooting guide or give us a shout here.