Upgrading existing versions

Warning

Be aware that some upgrades are not reversible, meaning that the data directory may be changed so that it is no longer compatible with older versions of GeoServer. See Migrating a data directory between versions for more details.

The general GeoServer upgrade process is as follows:

  1. Back up the current data directory. This can involve simply copying the directory to an additional place.

  2. Make sure that the current data directory is external to the application (not located inside the application file structure).

    Check the GeoServer Server status page for the double check the data directory location.

  3. Make a note of any extensions you have installed.

    • The GeoServer About ‣ Server Status page provides a Modules tab listing the modules installed.

    • Some extensions include more than one module, as an example the WPS extension is listed as gs-wps-core and gs-web-wps.

  4. Uninstall the old version and install the new version.

    • Download maintenance release to update existing installation

    • Download stable release when ready to upgrade

  5. Be sure to download and install each extension used by your prior installation.

  6. Make sure that the new installation continues to point to the same data directory used by the previous version.

Notes on upgrading specific versions

JTS Type Bindings (GeoServer 2.14 and newer)

As of GeoServer 2.14, the output produced by REST featuretype and structured coverage requests using a different package name (org.locationtech instead of com.vividsolutions) for geometry type bindings, due to the upgrade to JTS (Java Topology Suite) 1.16.0. For example:

Before:

...
<attribute>
  <name>geom</name>
  <minOccurs>0</minOccurs>
  <maxOccurs>1</maxOccurs>
  <nillable>true</nillable>
  <binding>com.vividsolutions.jts.geom.Point</binding>
</attribute>
...

After:

...
<attribute>
  <name>geom</name>
  <minOccurs>0</minOccurs>
  <maxOccurs>1</maxOccurs>
  <nillable>true</nillable>
  <binding>org.locationtech.jts.geom.Point</binding>
</attribute>
...

Any REST clients which rely on this binding information should be updated to support the new names.

GeoJSON encoding (GeoServer 2.6 and newer)

As of GeoServer 2.6, the GeoJSON produced by the WFS service no longer uses a non-standard encoding for the CRS. To reenable this behavior for compatibility purposes, set GEOSERVER_GEOJSON_LEGACY_CRS=true as a system property, context parameter, or environment variable.

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