Should I be upgrading PostGRESQL

[nigellh]

Hi @nscuro

You helped my migrate from the internal database for DT to PostGreSQL sometime ago.

I was about to upgrade to the latest version of DT and wondered if I should be upgrading the DB to.

Currently I have it set to

  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine

I can see from https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres there is now a 18-alpine

Should I go to that at the same time and is it (cough, cough) painless?

Many thanks

[nigellh]

Hmm.... tried it on a test system and the answer is no. Upgraded to the latest DT fine.

Then tried upgrading PostGreSQL and got the following from the apiserver log:

apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:01,862 INFO [EmbeddedJettyServer] alpine-executable-war v3.4.0 (3146c05b-f2f8-4841-9b7a-baac9305fd42) built on: 2025-11-16T18:02:53Z
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:04,991 INFO [Config] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:04,992 INFO [Config] OS Name:      Linux
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:04,993 INFO [Config] OS Version:   6.8.0-100-generic
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:04,993 INFO [Config] OS Arch:      amd64
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:04,993 INFO [Config] CPU Cores:    8
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:04,999 INFO [Config] Max Memory:   12.5 GB (13,416,529,920.0 bytes)
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,000 INFO [Config] Java Vendor:  Eclipse Adoptium
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,001 INFO [Config] Java Version: 21.0.9+10-LTS
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,001 INFO [Config] Java Home:    /opt/java/openjdk
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,001 INFO [Config] Java Temp:    /tmp
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,002 INFO [Config] User:         dtrack
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,002 INFO [Config] User Home:    /data/
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,002 INFO [Config] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,003 INFO [Config] Initializing Configuration
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,004 INFO [Config] System property alpine.application.properties not specified
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,004 INFO [Config] Loading application.properties from classpath
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,010 INFO [Config] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,010 INFO [Config] Application:  Dependency-Track
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,011 INFO [Config] Version:      4.13.6
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,011 INFO [Config] Built-on:     2025-11-17T08:44:22Z
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,011 INFO [Config] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,011 INFO [Config] Framework:    Alpine
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,012 INFO [Config] Version :     3.4.0
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,012 INFO [Config] Built-on:     2025-11-16T18:02:53Z
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,012 INFO [Config] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,115 INFO [RequirementsVerifier] Initializing requirements verifier
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,116 INFO [UpgradeInitializer] Initializing upgrade framework
apiserver-1  | 2026-02-11 12:07:05,394 ERROR [UpgradeMetaProcessor] An error occurred connecting to the database.
apiserver-1  | org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: The connection attempt failed.

This is my YAML file:

#####################################################
# This Docker Compose file contains three services
#    Dependency-Track API Server
#    Dependency-Track FrontEnd
#          Postgres Database
#####################################################

services:
  apiserver:
    image: dependencytrack/apiserver:4.13.6
    depends_on:
    - postgres
    environment:
      ALPINE_DATABASE_MODE: "external"
      ALPINE_DATABASE_URL: "jdbc:postgresql://postgres:5432/dtrack"
      ALPINE_DATABASE_DRIVER: "org.postgresql.Driver"
      ALPINE_DATABASE_USERNAME: "dtrack"
      ALPINE_DATABASE_PASSWORD: "dtrack"
    ports:
    - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
    - "apiserver-data:/data"
    restart: unless-stopped

  frontend:
    image: dependencytrack/frontend:4.13.6
    environment:
      API_BASE_URL: "http://dd-dt-svr-24-041.fyre.ibm.com:8080"
    ports:
    - "8081:8080"
    restart: unless-stopped

  postgres:
    image: postgres:18-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: "dtrack"
      POSTGRES_USER: "dtrack"
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: "dtrack"
    ports:
    - "127.0.0.1:5432:5432"
    volumes:
    - "postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data"
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  apiserver-data: { }
  postgres-data: { }

I can go back to 16 and it works. Would just like to know why 18 does not. Thanks

[nscuro]

Major version upgrades of Postgres require some additional work: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/upgrading.html

For major releases of PostgreSQL, the internal data storage format is subject to change, thus complicating upgrades. The traditional method for moving data to a new major version is to dump and restore the database, though this can be slow. A faster method is pg_upgrade.

As per https://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/, Postgres 16 will receive support until November 2028. Dependency-Track works with even older Postgres versions.

The upcoming version 5 of Dependency-Track will require a baseline Postgres version of 14. With 16 you are well within the support ranges of both DT and Postgres itself.

[nigellh]

I knew I shouldn't have asked! :-) I will be retired by then so it will be someone else's problem! I will give it a go on my test server to see if I can get it to work.

[nigellh]

PS. @nscuro Thanks for looking and the answer.