Upgrade environments

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This page describes how to upgrade your environment to a new Cloud Composer or Airflow version.

About upgrade operations

You can upgrade the Cloud Composer version, the Airflow version, or both at the same time.

When you change the version of Airflow or Cloud Composer used by your environment:

• Cloud Composer re-deploys your environment's components using new versions of Cloud Composer images.

• Cloud Composer applies Airflow configuration changes, such as custom PyPI packages or Airflow configuration option overrides, if your environment had them before the upgrade.

• Cloud Composer updates the Airflow airflow_db connection to point to the new Cloud SQL database.

Upgrading doesn't change how you connect to the resources in your environment, such as the URL of your environment's bucket, or Airflow web server.

Limitations of upgrade operations

Upgrade operations have the following limitations:

• You can't downgrade to an earlier Cloud Composer or Airflow version.

• In Google Cloud console, you can upgrade only to the latest supported versions of Cloud Composer.

• In Google Cloud CLI, API, or Terraform, you can upgrade an environment to the latest supported versions, three previous versions of Cloud Composer, the last patch version of the previous minor version, and to versions with an extended upgrade timeline. It's not possible to upgrade to other versions of Cloud Composer, even if they are still supported and can be used to create a new environment.

• The version that you upgrade to must support your environment's current Python version.

• The Compute Engine API quota limits can prevent upgrades. In Google Cloud console, navigate to the IAM and Admin > Quotas and System Limits page and check if the Compute Engine API quota for CPU is not exceeded. If the quota threshold is being approached, request Quota extension before proceeding with upgrade operation.

• You can't upgrade your environment if the Airflow database contains more than 16 GB of data. During an upgrade, a warning is shown if the Airflow database size is more than 16 GB. In this case, perform the database maintenance to reduce the database size.

• If you use the XCom mechanism to transfer files, make sure that you use it according to Airflow's guidelines. Transferring big files or a large number of files using XCom impacts Airflow database's performance and can lead to failures when loading snapshots or upgrading your environment. Consider using alternatives such as Cloud Storage to transfer large volumes of data.

Before you begin

Caution:

• Make sure that you know the differences between the current versions of Airflow and Cloud Composer and the versions that you are upgrading to. The new version can include different versions of preinstalled packages, patches from Cloud Composer, or changes in Airflow functionality, provided by the Airflow open source project. You can check the versions of provider packages that are included in a specific version.

• Make sure that your DAGs are compatible with the new Airflow version and new versions of all provider packages (including the Airflow provider package for Google Cloud and Google services). Incompatible changes can cause your DAGs to no longer work.

• During an upgrade operation, all running tasks are terminated. After the upgrade is completed, Airflow schedules these tasks for a retry, depending on the way you configure retries for your DAGs.

• Do not upgrade GKE clusters of your Cloud Composer environments to newer versions. Use the GKE version that was pre-configured during the environment creation and rely on auto-upgrades of the GKE service.

• We recommend to create a new snapshot of the environment to be able to re-create the environment in case this is needed.

• Your account must have a role that can trigger environment upgrade operations. In addition, the service account of the environment must have a role that has enough permissions to perform upgrade operations. For more information, see Access control.

Check that your environment is up to date

Cloud Composer displays warnings when your environment's image approaches its end of full support date. You can use these warnings to always keep your environment supported.

Figure 1. A deprecation message is displayed on the Environment details page

Cloud Composer keeps track of the Cloud Composer image version that your environment is based on. When it approaches the end of support date, you can see a warning in the list of environments and on the Environment details page.

Note: You can always upgrade your environment, even if Cloud Composer image version is past its full support period.

To check if your environment is up to date:

Console

1. In Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

   Go to Environments

2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

3. Go to the Environment configuration tab.

4. In the Image version field, one of the following messages is displayed:

   • Newest available version. Your environment image is fully supported.

   • New version available. Your environment image is fully supported and you can upgrade it to a later version.

   • Support for this image version ends in... Your environment image approaches the end of the full support period.

   • This version is not supported as of... Your environment is past the full support period.

gcloud

This functionality is not available through Google Cloud CLI. You can View available upgrades instead, which shows new versions that are available.

API

This functionality is not available through API. You can View available upgrades instead, which shows new versions that are available.

View available upgrades

To view Cloud Composer versions that you can upgrade to:

Console

1. In Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

   Go to Environments

2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

3. Go to the Environment configuration tab and click Upgrade Image Version.

4. For the list of available versions, click the Cloud Composer Image version drop-down menu.

gcloud

gcloud composer environments list-upgrades \
  ENVIRONMENT_NAME \
  --location LOCATION

Replace:

• ENVIRONMENT_NAME with the name of the environment.
• LOCATION with the region where the environment is located.

Example:

gcloud composer environments list-upgrades example-environment \
  --location us-central1

API

You can view available versions for a location. To do so, construct an imageVersions.list API request.

For example:

// GET https://composer.googleapis.com/v1/projects/example-project/
// locations/us-central1/imageVersions

Check for PyPI package conflicts before upgrading

Preview — Upgrade check

This feature is subject to the "Pre-GA Offerings Terms" in the General Service Terms section of the Service Specific Terms. Pre-GA features are available "as is" and might have limited support. For more information, see the launch stage descriptions.

You can check if PyPI packages installed in your environment have any conflicts with preinstalled packages in the new Cloud Composer image.

A successful check means that there are no conflicts in PyPI package dependencies between the current and the specified version. However, an upgrade operation might still not be successful because of other reasons.

Console

To run an upgrade check for your environment:

1. In Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

   Go to Environments

2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

3. Go to the Environment configuration tab, locate the Image version entry, and click Upgrade.

4. In the Environment version upgrade dialog, in the New version drop-down list, select a Cloud Composer version that you want to upgrade to.

5. In the PyPI packages compatibility section, click Check for conflicts.

6. Wait until the check is complete. If there are PyPI package dependency conflicts, then the displayed error messages contain details about conflicting packages and package versions.

gcloud

To run an upgrade check for your environment, run the environments check-upgrade command with the Cloud Composer image version. that you want to upgrade to.

gcloud composer environments check-upgrade \
  ENVIRONMENT_NAME \
  --location LOCATION \
  --image-version VERSION

Replace:

• ENVIRONMENT_NAME with the name of the environment.
• LOCATION with the region where the environment is located.
• VERSION with the new Cloud Composer image version that you want to upgrade to, in the composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z format. You can also use all version aliases.

Example:

gcloud composer environments check-upgrade example-environment \
  --location us-central1 \
  --image-version composer-2.9.11-airflow-2.9.3

Example output:

Waiting for [projects/example-project/locations/us-central1/environments/
example-environment] to be checked for PyPI package conflicts when upgrading
to composer-2.9.11-airflow-2.9.3. Operation [projects/example-project/locations/
us-central1/operations/04d0e8b2-...]...done.
...

Response:
'@type': type.googleapis.com/
google.cloud.orchestration.airflow.service.v1.CheckUpgradeResponse
buildLogUri: https://console.cloud.google.com/cloud-build/builds/79738aa7-...
containsPypiModulesConflict: CONFLICT
pypiConflictBuildLogExtract: |-
The Cloud Build image build failed: Build failed; check build logs for
details. Full log can be found at https://console.cloud.google.com/
cloud-build/builds/79738aa7-...
Error details: tensorboard 2.2.2 has requirement
setuptools>=41.0.0, but you have setuptools 40.3.0.

As an alternative, you can run an upgrade check asynchronously. Use the --async argument to make an asynchronous call, then check the result with the gcloud composer operations describe command.

API

Construct an environments.checkUpgrade API request.

Specify the image version in the imageVersion field:

{
  "imageVersion": "VERSION"
}

Replace VERSION with the new version that you want to upgrade to, in the composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z format.

Upgrade your environment

Caution: Pause all DAGs and wait for in-progress tasks to finish before upgrading.

To upgrade your environment to a later version of Cloud Composer or Airflow:

Console

1. In Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

   Go to Environments

2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

3. Go to the Environment configuration tab.

4. Locate the Image version item and click Upgrade.

5. From the Image version drop-down menu, select a Cloud Composer version that you want to upgrade to.

6. Click Upgrade.

gcloud

gcloud composer environments update \
  ENVIRONMENT_NAME \
  --location LOCATION \
  --image-version VERSION

Replace:

• ENVIRONMENT_NAME with the name of the environment.
• LOCATION with the region where the environment is located.
• VERSION with the new Cloud Composer image version that you want to upgrade to, in the composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z format. You can also use all version aliases.

For example:

gcloud composer environments update
  example-environment \
  --location us-central1 \
  --image-version composer-2.9.11-airflow-2.9.3

API

1. Construct an environments.patch API request.

2. In this request:

   1. In the updateMask parameter, specify the config.softwareConfig.imageVersion mask.

   2. In the request body, in the imageVersion field, specify a new version that you want to upgrade to.

For example:

// PATCH https://composer.googleapis.com/v1/projects/example-project/
// locations/us-central1/environments/example-environment?updateMask=
// config.softwareConfig.imageVersion

  {
    "config": {
      "softwareConfig": {
        "imageVersion": "composer-2.9.11-airflow-2.9.3"
      }
    }
  }

Terraform

The image_version field in the config.software_config block controls the Cloud Composer image of your environment. In this field, specify a new Cloud Composer image.

  resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {
  provider = google-beta
  name = "ENVIRONMENT_NAME"
  region = "LOCATION"

  config {
    software_config {
      image_version = "VERSION"
    }
  }
}

Replace:

• ENVIRONMENT_NAME with the name of the environment.
• LOCATION with the region where the environment is located. the new Cloud Composer image version that you want to upgrade to, in the composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z format. You can also use all version aliases.

Example:

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {
  provider = google-beta
  name = "example-environment"
  region = "us-central1"

  config {
    software_config {
      image_version = "composer-2.9.11-airflow-2.9.3"
    }
  }
}

What's next

• List of versions
• Cloud Composer versioning
• Update environments