Migrating Self-Hosted to another Self-Hosted server, can we upgrade version in the process?

Question

I'm migrating the BitBucket server for our organization from one Data Center to another.  The migration is from BitBucket v5.1.0 which no longer appears available.  Can I upgrade to the latest version and still migrate our existing repositories?  According to the migration documentation I found on the site it says to use the same version, but I'm wondering if this is a suggestion or requirement?

Thanks in advance for your help.

robrastelli · Answer

I don't disagree with you on the update cadence.  We are definitely behind on this one.

I can just move the 5.1.0 folder from my older server to the new?  Is there some documented steps that go over how to get the service configured and installed in that manner?

Craig Castle-Mead_20fp9z · Answer

Hey @robrastelli

While there should be no reason that a migrate AND upgrade in a single step would be problematic, if you have issues it’s difficult to discern if the problem was the migrate or the upgrade so definitely recommend from my experience doing it in stages (wait a week or so between each step).

If you have full access to the current server then you don’t need to download the 5.1.0 installer - just backup the database, application directory and home directory.

I also suggest you review your update cadence. 5.1.0 was released almost 3 years ago and there’s been numerous security/bug fixes and features released