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Upgrade the collector version

The whole point of the managed agent is that you upgrade the OpenTelemetry Collector centrally, without editing install scripts on every host. There are two ways the collector version changes on a host.

A platform operator sets a target collector version in the host's remote config from the backend. On its next poll, each host:

  1. fetches the manifest entry for that version,
  2. downloads the artifact and verifies its SHA-256 against the manifest,
  3. on a match, installs it to /var/lib/atherops/otelcol/<version>/, repoints the current symlink, and restarts the collector,
  4. on a mismatch, rejects the download, keeps running the current binary, and logs the abort. Your fleet never runs an unverified binary.

You will see these lines on the host:

level=info msg="remote config applied" target_collector=0.103.0 changed=true
level=info msg="collector updated" old=0.102.0 new=0.103.0

On a checksum failure during a remote upgrade:

level=error msg="collector upgrade aborted: sha256 mismatch"

The host keeps running the previous, verified collector. See Supply-chain trust.

Each heartbeat reports the running collector version (X-Collector-Version), so the platform records which version each host runs. This release shows the running version per host on the Hosts page; a dedicated fleet-wide "version drift" rollout view is not part of this release.

Option B: Re-run the installer

Re-running the one-liner installs whatever versions the published manifest points to:

curl -sSL https://releases.atherops.com/otel-agent/install.sh | sudo bash

On a host that already has valid credentials you do not need an install token. The installer detects the existing /etc/atherops/credentials.json and proceeds as a re-install:

[atherops] Re-install detected — using existing credentials (host_id=h_7f3a2b)

The installer verifies the SHA-256 of every downloaded artifact before installing, exactly as on first install.

Verify the new version

atherops-otel-agent --version
atherops-otel-agent 1.2.0
otelcol-contrib 0.103.0

See also