Upgrade Snow Owl

When a new Snow Owl Terminology Server release is available, we recommend performing the following steps.

New releases are going to be distributed the same way: a Docker stack and its configuration within an archive.

It is advised to decompress the new release files to a temporary folder and compare the contents of ./snow-owl/docker .

[root@host]# diff /opt/snow-owl/docker/ /opt/new-snow-owl-release/snow-owl/docker/
Common subdirectories: /opt/snow-owl/docker/configs and /opt/new-snow-owl-release/snow-owl/docker/configs
diff /opt/snow-owl/docker/.env /opt/new-snow-owl-release/snow-owl/docker/.env
10c10
< ELASTICSEARCH_VERSION=8.19.14
---
> ELASTICSEARCH_VERSION=8.19.15
24c24
< SNOWOWL_VERSION=10.0.0
---
> SNOWOWL_VERSION=10.1.0

The changes are usually restricted to version numbers in the .env file. In such cases, it is equally acceptable to overwrite the contents of the ./snow-owl/docker folder as is or cherry-pick the necessary modifications by hand.

Once the new version of the files is in place, it is sufficient to just issue the following commands; an explicit stop of the service is not even required (in the folder ./snow-owl/docker):

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Do not use docker compose restart because it won't pick up any .yml or .env file changes. See the explanation in the official Docker guide.