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CustomersDot Staging and Production - Ubuntu upgrade to 24.04 LTS

Production Change

Change Summary

Both CustomersDot VMs (on stgsub and prdsub) run on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, which EOL was reached at the end of May 2025. This means that these VMs are not receiving maintenance and patches for the OS they run on any longer.

We need to upgrade this distribution to the most recent LTS, which is version 24.04

Original issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/customersdot-ansible/-/issues/261

Change Details

  1. Services Impacted - CustomersDot Staging and Production VMs
  2. Change Technician - @cmcfarland DRI for the execution of this change
  3. Change Reviewer - TBD DRI for the review of this change
  4. Scheduled Date and Time (UTC in format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM) - TBD
  5. Time tracking - TBD Time, in minutes, hours, or days, needed to execute all change steps, including rollback
  6. Downtime Component - TBD If there is a need for downtime, include downtime estimate here

Set Maintenance Mode in GitLab

If your change involves scheduled maintenance, add a step to set and unset maintenance mode per our runbooks. This will make sure SLA calculations adjust for the maintenance period.

Detailed steps for the change

Steps defined in original issue

As per Cameron's comment:

  1. Convert the customers module from using node_count to using nodes map method of specifying node properties. This is the hardest step, I think, because it might require migrating resources in TF from the old way to the new one.
  2. Convert one of the nodes to use a new os_boot_image and destroy the node, using Terraform to re-create it.
  3. Re-provision and test the VM.
  4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the other VM nodes if the new OS image is working well.

⚠️ Changes are to be carried in Staging first.

Pre-execution steps

  • Make sure all tasks in Change Technician checklist are done
  • For C1 and C2 change issues, the SRE on-call has been informed prior to change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @sre-oncall and this issue and await their acknowledgement.)
    • The SRE on-call provided approval with the eoc_approved label on the issue.
  • For C1, C2, or blocks deployments change issues, Release managers have been informed prior to change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @release-managers and this issue and await their acknowledgment.)
  • There are currently no active incidents that are severity1 or severity2
  • If the change involves doing maintenance on a database host, an appropriate silence targeting the host(s) should be added for the duration of the change.

Change steps - steps to take to execute the change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - Estimated Time to Complete in Minutes

Rollback

Rollback steps - steps to be taken in the event of a need to rollback this change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - Estimated Time to Complete in Minutes

  • Rollback Step 1
  • Rollback Step 2
  • Set label changeaborted /label ~change::aborted

Monitoring

Key metrics to observe

  • Metric: Metric Name
    • Location: Dashboard URL
    • What changes to this metric should prompt a rollback: Describe Changes

Change Reviewer checklist

C4 C3 C2 C1:

  • Check if the following applies:
    • The scheduled day and time of execution of the change is appropriate.
    • The change plan is technically accurate.
    • The change plan includes estimated timing values based on previous testing.
    • The change plan includes a viable rollback plan.
    • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.

C2 C1:

  • Check if the following applies:
    • The complexity of the plan is appropriate for the corresponding risk of the change. (i.e. the plan contains clear details).
    • The change plan includes success measures for all steps/milestones during the execution.
    • The change adequately minimizes risk within the environment/service.
    • The performance implications of executing the change are well-understood and documented.
    • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.
      • If not, is it possible (or necessary) to make changes to observability platforms for added visibility?
    • The change has a primary and secondary SRE with knowledge of the details available during the change window.
    • The change window has been agreed with Release Managers in advance of the change. If the change is planned for APAC hours, this issue has an agreed pre-change approval.
    • The labels blocks deployments and/or blocks feature-flags are applied as necessary.

Change Technician checklist

  • The change plan is technically accurate.
  • This Change Issue is linked to the appropriate Issue and/or Epic
  • Change has been tested in staging and results noted in a comment on this issue.
  • A dry-run has been conducted and results noted in a comment on this issue.
  • The change execution window respects the Production Change Lock periods.
  • For C1 and C2 change issues, the change event is added to the GitLab Production calendar.
  • For C1 and C2 change issues, the Infrastructure Manager provided approval with the manager_approved label on the issue. Mention @gitlab-org/saas-platforms/inframanagers in this issue to request approval and provide visibility to all infrastructure managers.
  • For C1, C2, or blocks deployments change issues, confirm with Release managers that the change does not overlap or hinder any release process (In #production channel, mention @release-managers and this issue and await their acknowledgment.)