What is risk of updating?

[jaytee129]

I've been using Proxmox for about 4 months now as a "non- enterprise" user (see screenshot below) and generally doing updates when they come up or soon after, which seems pretty frequently, IMO.

So far no issues but what's the risk to my operations of doing these updates in "production"? I'm using Proxmox to provide an internet firewall via Sophos UTM, and other services via Windows VM (UPS monitoring/control, internet reporting using Fastvue for Sophos, etc.). I have two remote installations and I don't want to cripple anything as I can't get there that quickly/easily and it is providing internet to multiple end users in both cases.

I don't have a lower state environment to test things in first. While this is for family (and I'm not making any money) so I do have some leeway if things go wrong, I don't have that much leeway given the somewhat critical need for internet access.




Bottom line, how often do updates in this category end up breaking things that were running fine before the update? Have the updates been thoroughly/widely tested before they are published? Is there a way I can manage the residual risk other than paying for a "lower state" environment? Worse case, is there a way I can roll back from an update, e.g. like Microsoft and Apple allow (even if only for a short time as is the case with Apple)?

Any info would be appreciated.

 

[Neobin]

Have the updates been thoroughly/widely tested before they are published?

Packages go this route: Internal testing -> pvetest -> pve-no-subscription -> pve-enterprise

So with: pve-no-subscription you are roughly said a release candidate tester (or whatever you want to call it).

If you do want the most widely tested packages and therefore be more on the safer side, you need to get (a) subscription(s) [1], so that you are eligible to use the: pve-enterprise repository.

Changes and therefore updates can potentially ever break things, but chances are lower, the more and wider it got tested beforehand, of course...

Worse case, is there a way I can roll back from an update

Unfortunately not, at least not out of the box. I do not know, if you could tinker something together for this.

Edit: In the case of a problem with a newer kernel-version, you can boot with an older one. But if the new (and automatically for boot selected) kernel does not boot, you need some sort of physical access to select the older kernel for boot. (At least one time, so that you can pin the older kernel for future (re)boots.) :tidE

I have two remote installations and I don't want to cripple anything as I can't get there that quickly/easily and it is providing internet to multiple end users in both cases.

At least a safer solution for this would be, to have a bare-metal router with a VPN-server set up on it and a (separate) PVE-host with IPMI, so that you are ever be able to remotely connect and manage the PVE-host per IPMI through the VPN, even if the PVE-host has a software-side problem.

[1] https://proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve/pricing