Update Netdata

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What You'll Learn

How to update Netdata based on your installation method, determine your installation type, and configure the updater behavior.

The update process can differ based on the installation type:

• Install types starting with binpkg or ending with build or static can be updated using our kickstart script update method.
• Installs with an installation type of custom usually indicate installing a third-party package through the system package manager. To update these installations, you should update the package just like you would any other package on your system.
• macOS users should check our update instructions for macOS.
• Manually built installs should check our update instructions for manual builds.

Determine which installation method you used

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First Step

Before updating, you need to identify your installation type to choose the correct update method.

You can run the following to determine your installation type:

netdata -W buildinfo | grep -E 'Installation Type|Install type:'

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If the above command doesn't work

If you're using an older Netdata version or the above command doesn't output anything, try our one-line installation script in dry-run mode. Run the following command to determine the appropriate update method:

wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh --dry-run

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Installation Prefix

If you installed Netdata using an installation prefix, you will need to add an --install-prefix option specifying that prefix to make sure it finds the existing installation.

If you see a line starting with --- Would attempt to update existing installation by running the updater script located at:, then our kickstart script update method will work for you.

Otherwise, it should either indicate that the installation type is not supported (which probably means you either have a custom install or built Netdata manually) or indicate that it would create a new install (which means that you either used a non-standard installation path, or that you don't have Netdata installed).

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The following table contains all possible installation types:

Installation-type	Description
binpkg-rpm	RPM-based native packages shipped from Netdata's repos.
binpkg-deb	DEB-based native packages shipped from Netdata's repos.
kickstart-build	Build from source with the kickstart script's --build-only option.
kickstart-static	Installed the static builds, shipped from netdata via the kickstart script's (option: --static-only).
manual-static-ARCH	Manually installed static Agent binaries by downloading archives from GitHub and installing them manually. Offline installations are part of this category.
legacy-build	Used for pre-existing kickstart.sh or netdata-installer.sh installations. This exist because we cannot determine how the install originally happened.
legacy-static	Same as legacy-build, but for static installs.
oci	Installed using official Docker images from Netdata, though not necessarily running on Docker
custom	Anything not covered by the other identifiers, including manual builds, manually running netdata-installer.sh, and third-party packages (community).
Unknown	Same as custom.

Update Methods by Platform

UNIX

In most cases, you can update Netdata using our one-line kickstart script. This script will automatically run the update script installed as part of the initial install and preserve the existing installation options you specified.

If you installed Netdata using an installation prefix, you will need to add an --install-prefix option specifying that prefix to this command to make sure it finds Netdata.

wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh

Windows

To update Netdata, download the latest installer and reinstall the Agent.

For automatic updates, see our Windows automatic updates guide.

macOS

If you installed Netdata on your macOS system using Homebrew, you can explicitly request an update:

brew upgrade netdata

Homebrew downloads the latest Netdata via the formula, ensures all dependencies are met, and updates Netdata via reinstallation.

Manual installation from Git

If you installed Netdata manually from Git run our automatic requirements installer, which works on many Linux distributions, to ensure your system has the dependencies necessary for new features.

bash <(curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/netdata/netdata/master/packaging/installer/install-required-packages.sh)

Navigate to the directory where you first cloned the Netdata repository, pull the latest source code, and run netdata-install.sh again. This process compiles Netdata with the latest source code and updates it via reinstallation.

cd /path/to/netdata/git
git pull origin master
sudo ./netdata-installer.sh

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Optional Parameters

If you installed Netdata with any optional parameters, such as --install-prefix to install under a specific directory, you need to set them again during this process.

Additional Configuration

Control runtime behavior of the updater script

Starting with v1.40.0, the netdata-updater.sh script supports a config file called netdata-updater.conf, located in the same directory as the main netdata.conf file. This file uses POSIX shell script syntax to define variables that are used by the updater.

This configuration file can be edited using our edit-config script.

Available Configuration Options:

Option	Description	Default
NETDATA_UPDATER_JITTER	Sets an upper limit in seconds on the random delay in the updater script when running as a scheduled task. This random delay helps avoid issues resulting from too many nodes trying to reconnect to the Cloud at the same time. Most users shouldn't ever need to change this.	3600 (one hour)
NETDATA_MAJOR_VERSION_UPDATES	If set to a value other than 0, then new major versions will be installed without user confirmation. Must be set to a non-zero value for automated updates to install new major versions.	0
NETDATA_NO_SYSTEMD_JOURNAL	If set to a value other than 0, skip attempting to install the netdata-plugin-systemd-journal package on supported systems on update. The updater will install this optional package by default on supported systems if this option is not set. It only affects systems using native packages.	0

Quick Reference

Update Commands by Installation Type

Installation Type	Update Method	Command
binpkg-rpm/deb	Kickstart script	wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh
kickstart-build/static	Kickstart script	wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh
legacy-build/static	Kickstart script	wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh
manual-static-ARCH	Kickstart script	wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh
custom	System package manager	Use your system's package manager
macOS (Homebrew)	Homebrew	brew upgrade netdata
Manual Git	Git + installer	See manual installation steps
Windows	MSI installer	Download and run latest installer