New to KubeDB? Please start here.
Update version of Cassandra
This guide will show you how to use KubeDB Ops-manager operator to update the version of Cassandra Topology.
Before You Begin
At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the
kubectlcommand-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.Install
KubeDBProvisioner and Ops-manager operator in your cluster following the steps here.You should be familiar with the following
KubeDBconcepts:
To keep everything isolated, we are going to use a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.
$ kubectl create ns demo
namespace/demo created
Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/cassandra directory of kubedb/docs repository.
Prepare Cassandra
Now, we are going to deploy a Cassandra replicaset database with version 4.1.8.
Deploy Cassandra
In this section, we are going to deploy a Cassandra topology cluster. Then, in the next section we will update the version using CassandraOpsRequest CRD. Below is the YAML of the Cassandra CR that we are going to create,
apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: Cassandra
metadata:
name: cassandra-prod
namespace: demo
spec:
version: 4.1.8
topology:
rack:
- name: r0
replicas: 2
podTemplate:
spec:
containers:
- name: cassandra
resources:
limits:
memory: 2Gi
cpu: 2
requests:
memory: 1Gi
cpu: 1
storage:
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 1Gi
storageType: Durable
deletionPolicy: WipeOut
Let’s create the Cassandra CR we have shown above,
$ kubectl create -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2025.7.31/docs/examples/cassandra/update-version/cassandra.yaml
cassandra.kubedb.com/cassandra-prod created
Now, wait until cassandra-prod created has status Ready. i.e,
$ kubectl get cas -n demo -w
NAME TYPE VERSION STATUS AGE
cassandra-prod kubedb.com/v1alpha2 5.0.3 Provisioning 45s
cassandra-prod kubedb.com/v1alpha2 5.0.3 Provisioning 82s
.
.
cassandra-prod kubedb.com/v1alpha2 5.0.3 Ready 106s
We are now ready to apply the CassandraOpsRequest CR to update.
update Cassandra Version
Here, we are going to update Cassandra from 4.1.8 to 5.0.3.
Create CassandraOpsRequest:
In order to update the version, we have to create a CassandraOpsRequest CR with your desired version that is supported by KubeDB. Below is the YAML of the CassandraOpsRequest CR that we are going to create,
apiVersion: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: CassandraOpsRequest
metadata:
name: cassandra-update-version
namespace: demo
spec:
type: UpdateVersion
databaseRef:
name: cass
updateVersion:
targetVersion: 5.0.3
timeout: 5m
apply: IfReady
Here,
spec.databaseRef.namespecifies that we are performing operation oncassandra-prodCassandra.spec.typespecifies that we are going to performUpdateVersionon our database.spec.updateVersion.targetVersionspecifies the expected version of the database5.0.3.
Let’s create the CassandraOpsRequest CR we have shown above,
$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2025.7.31/docs/examples/cassandra/update-version/update-version.yaml
cassandraopsrequest.ops.kubedb.com/cassandra-update-version created
Verify Cassandra version updated successfully
If everything goes well, KubeDB Ops-manager operator will update the image of Cassandra object and related PetSets and Pods.
Let’s wait for CassandraOpsRequest to be Successful. Run the following command to watch CassandraOpsRequest CR,
$ kubectl get cassandraopsrequest -n demo
NAME TYPE STATUS AGE
cassandra-update-version UpdateVersion Successful 2m6s
We can see from the above output that the CassandraOpsRequest has succeeded. If we describe the CassandraOpsRequest we will get an overview of the steps that were followed to update the database version.
$ kubectl describe cassandraopsrequest -n demo cassandra-update-version
Name: cassandra-update-version
Namespace: demo
Labels: <none>
Annotations: <none>
API Version: ops.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
Kind: CassandraOpsRequest
Metadata:
Creation Timestamp: 2025-07-22T06:15:30Z
Generation: 1
Resource Version: 124398
UID: 03d0f9ef-fbbc-48bb-b1cb-9c38d5b127ce
Spec:
Apply: IfReady
Database Ref:
Name: cassandra-prod
Timeout: 5m
Type: UpdateVersion
Update Version:
Target Version: 5.0.3
Status:
Conditions:
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:15:30Z
Message: Cassandra ops-request has started to update version
Observed Generation: 1
Reason: UpdateVersion
Status: True
Type: UpdateVersion
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:15:38Z
Message: successfully reconciled the Cassandra with updated version
Observed Generation: 1
Reason: UpdatePetSets
Status: True
Type: UpdatePetSets
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:18:23Z
Message: Successfully Restarted Cassandra nodes
Observed Generation: 1
Reason: RestartPods
Status: True
Type: RestartPods
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:15:43Z
Message: get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Observed Generation: 1
Status: True
Type: GetPod--cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:15:43Z
Message: evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Observed Generation: 1
Status: True
Type: EvictPod--cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:15:48Z
Message: running pod; ConditionStatus:False
Observed Generation: 1
Status: False
Type: RunningPod
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:16:23Z
Message: get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Observed Generation: 1
Status: True
Type: GetPod--cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:16:23Z
Message: evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Observed Generation: 1
Status: True
Type: EvictPod--cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Last Transition Time: 2025-07-22T06:18:23Z
Message: Successfully completed update cassandra version
Observed Generation: 1
Reason: Successful
Status: True
Type: Successful
Observed Generation: 1
Phase: Successful
Events:
Type Reason Age From Message
---- ------ ---- ---- -------
Normal Starting 6m51s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator Start processing for CassandraOpsRequest: demo/cassandra-update-version
Normal Starting 6m51s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator Pausing Cassandra databse: demo/cassandra-prod
Normal Successful 6m51s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator Successfully paused Cassandra database: demo/cassandra-prod for CassandraOpsRequest: cassandra-update-version
Normal UpdatePetSets 6m43s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator successfully reconciled the Cassandra with updated version
Warning get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0 6m38s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Warning evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0 6m38s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Warning running pod; ConditionStatus:False 6m33s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator running pod; ConditionStatus:False
Warning get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1 5m58s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Warning evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1 5m58s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Warning get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0 5m18s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Warning evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0 5m18s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-0
Warning get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1 4m38s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator get pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Warning evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1 4m38s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator evict pod; ConditionStatus:True; PodName:cassandra-prod-rack-r0-1
Normal RestartPods 3m58s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator Successfully Restarted Cassandra nodes
Normal Starting 3m58s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator Resuming Cassandra database: demo/cassandra-prod
Normal Successful 3m58s KubeDB Ops-manager Operator Successfully resumed Cassandra database: demo/cassandra-prod for CassandraOpsRequest: cassandra-update-version
Now, we are going to verify whether the Cassandra and the related PetSets and their Pods have the new version image. Let’s check,
$ kubectl get cas -n demo cassandra-prod -o=jsonpath='{.spec.version}{"\n"}'
5.0.3
$ kubectl get petset -n demo cassandra-prod-broker -o=jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[0].image}{"\n"}'
ghcr.io/appscode-images/cassandra-kraft:3.9.0@sha256:e251d3c0ceee0db8400b689e42587985034852a8a6c81b5973c2844e902e6d11
$ kubectl get petset -n demo cassandra-prod-rack-r0 -o=jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[0].image}{"\n"}'
ghcr.io/appscode-images/cassandra-management:5.0.3@sha256:ef296c7ce02b438f3af43bd07457ca44881c845c6eeef631989b4ed7351b7243
You can see from above, our Cassandra has been updated with the new version. So, the updateVersion process is successfully completed.
Cleaning Up
To clean up the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:
kubectl delete cassandraopsrequest -n demo cassandra-update-version
kubectl delete cas -n demo cassandra-prod
kubectl delete ns demo
Next Steps
- Detail concepts of Cassandra object.
- Monitor your Cassandra database with KubeDB using out-of-the-box Prometheus operator.
- Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.