Upgrading Kibanaedit

Before upgrading Kibana:

  • Consult the breaking changes docs.
  • Test upgrades in a dev environment before upgrading your production servers.
  • Backup your data using the Elasticsearch snapshots feature. You cannot roll back to an earlier version unless you have a backup of your data.
  • If you are using custom plugins, check that a compatible version is available.

Depending on which version of Kibana you’re upgrading from, the upgrade process will vary. Please consult the following table to determine which process you should follow:

Upgrade From Upgrade To Supported Upgrade Type

3.x

5.x

New installation

4.0 or 4.1

5.x

Standard upgrade & reindex

4.x >= 4.2

5.x

Standard upgrade

5.0.0 pre GA

5.x

Standard upgrade & reindex

5.x

5.y

Standard upgrade (where y > x)

Reindex is required if you ever upgraded from Kibana 4.1 or 4.0

Even if you’re running Kibana version 4.2 or higher, if you have previously upgraded from Kibana 4.0 or 4.1, you will need to do a Standard upgrade & reindex when upgrading to 5.x.

This is due to the Elasticsearch requirement that any index that was initially created before Elasticsearch 2.0 must be reindexed even if it’s currently working in Elasticsearch 2.x.

You only need to do this once when moving to 5.x.

Saved searches, visualizations, and dashboards created in Kibana 4.x are generally compatible with 5.x.