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 different 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).

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

    Note

    Alternately, you can install the new version directly over top of the old version.

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

Notes on upgrading specific versions

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.