Hi Peter,
Firstly, there is official upgrade path which states the following:
So, in your case, firstly make sure you’re on 11.11.8, and from there you can move forward.
Secondly, there are already a few posts on this topic. Please check them out as well, e.g.- GitLab upgrade from 11.8.1 Community Edition to the latest release - #2 by dnsmichi - it’s done on Ubuntu, but I believe you might encounter similar issues.
Some general rules / notes:
-
Make a backup. Two backups if needed
(e.g. VM snapshot + GL Backup). Especially before every major upgrade. -
Take time to upgrade major versions (11.x, 12.x, 13.x, etc) as they require tons of database migration and downtime - great advice from @dnsmichi (from Can we upgrade gitlab version from 12.10 to 15.8 - #8 by dnsmichi ) :
If the environment is too huge, or if there are many customizations, a possible alternative would be a stretched migration plan to not block production longer than needed.
- Monthly maintenance window from 12.x to 13.x
- Monthly maintenance window for 13.x to 14.x
- Monthly maintenance window from 14.x to 15.x
(in your case additionally monthly window from 11.x to 12.x)
-
Check the Supported operating systems | GitLab - you did not mention which version of RedHat you’re running, so make sure that target GitLab version is compatible with your OS. So it might be you will need to upgrade your OS in between as well.
-
For deprecated feature list, please check the list here and make sure that you’re not using any deprecated stuff before moving forward where it’s going to be removed.
-
For some special notes, check Upgrading GitLab | GitLab
If there is anything in specific you’re worried about, let us know 