2.1. Open edX Lilac Release

This section describes how to install the Open edX Lilac release.

2.1.1. What’s Included in Lilac

The Open edX Lilac release contains several new features for learners, course teams, and developers. For more information, see the Open edX Platform Release Notes.

2.1.2. What Is the Lilac Git Tag?

A git tag identifies the version of Open edX code that is the Lilac release. About three dozen repositories are tagged as part of an Open edX release. Many other repositories are installed as dependencies of those repositories. You can find the most up-to-date git tag for Lilac on the Open edX Named Releases page.

2.1.3. Installing the Lilac Release

You can install the Open edX Lilac release using the Open edX Installation instructions.

Lilac releases have git tag names like open-release/lilac.1. The available names are detailed on the Open edX Named Releases page.

2.1.4. Upgrading from the Koa Release

The recommended approach to upgrading an existing installation of the Open edX Koa release to the Lilac release is to make a fresh installation of the Lilac release on a new machine, and move your data and settings to it.

To move and upgrade your Koa data onto a Lilac installation, follow these steps.

  1. Be sure that your Koa installation is on the latest commit from open-release/koa.master. This ensures that your database is fully migrated and ready for upgrade to Lilac.

  2. Stop all services on the Koa machine.

  3. Dump the data on the Koa machine. Here’s an example script that will dump the MySQL and Mongo databases into a single .tgz file. The script will prompt for the MySQL and Mongo passwords as needed.

    #!/bin/bash
    MYSQL_CONN="-uroot -p"
    echo "Reading MySQL database names..."
    mysql ${MYSQL_CONN} -ANe "SELECT schema_name FROM information_schema.schemata WHERE schema_name NOT IN ('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema', 'sys')" > /tmp/db.txt
    DBS="--databases $(cat /tmp/db.txt)"
    NOW="$(date +%Y%m%dT%H%M%S)"
    SQL_FILE="mysql-data-${NOW}.sql"
    echo "Dumping MySQL structures..."
    mysqldump ${MYSQL_CONN} --add-drop-database --skip-add-drop-table --no-data ${DBS} > ${SQL_FILE}
    echo "Dumping MySQL data..."
    # If there is table data you don't need, add --ignore-table=tablename
    mysqldump ${MYSQL_CONN} --no-create-info ${DBS} >> ${SQL_FILE}
    
    for db in edxapp cs_comments_service; do
        echo "Dumping Mongo db ${db}..."
        mongodump -u admin -p -h localhost --authenticationDatabase admin -d ${db} --out mongo-dump-${NOW}
    done
    
    tar -czf openedx-data-${NOW}.tgz ${SQL_FILE} mongo-dump-${NOW}
    
  4. Copy the .tgz data file to the Lilac machine.

  5. Stop all services on the Lilac machine.

  6. Restore the Koa data into the Lilac machine. As an example, you might use the following commands.

    $ tar -xvf openedx-data-20200411T154750.tgz
    $ mysql -uroot -p < mysql-data-20200411T154750.sql
    $ mongorestore -u admin -p -h localhost --authenticationDatabase admin --drop -d edxapp mongo-dump-20200411T154750/edxapp
    $ mongorestore -u admin -p -h localhost --authenticationDatabase admin --drop -d cs_comment_service mongo-dump-20200411T154750/cs_comment_service_development
    
  7. Run the Lilac migrations, which will update your Koa data to be valid for Lilac:

    $ /edx/app/edx_ansible/edx_ansible/util/install/native.sh --tags migrate
    
  8. Copy your configuration files from the Koa machine to the Lilac machine.

  9. Restart all services.

2.1.5. Upgrading to a Subsequent Lilac Release

Occasionally, we release updates to Lilac. For example, the second release of Lilac will be open-release/lilac.2. The steps to upgrade differ based on your original installation method.

2.1.5.1. Upgrading a Docker Installation

Devstack is installed using Docker. To upgrade from one Lilac release to another, follow the instructions in devstack.

2.1.5.2. Upgrading a Native Installation

If you installed Open edX using the Open edX Native Installation, you can upgrade from one Lilac release to another by re-running those steps using your desired Lilac tag as the new value for OPENEDX_RELEASE.