Clarification needed: MariaDB 10.11 "outdated" warning in Flarum 2.0.0-rc.6

peopleinside

Hi everyone,
I’m currently running the newly released Flarum 2.0.0-rc.6 (#39716) on a production server with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

I’m getting a warning in the admin panel stating that my MariaDB version (10.11.14) is outdated and that Flarum recommends 11.8.0 or later for the best performance.

I completely understand the desire to push for newer versions to maximize performance, but I’d like some clarification from the core team or experienced users, as I'm quite hesitant to perform a major database upgrade:

Ubuntu LTS Context: MariaDB 10.11 is the default, officially supported version shipped with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and it will receive security updates until 2028. Is Flarum planning to drop support for this Ubuntu-default version in the near future, or is this warning just a "best practice" nudge?

Dismissing the warning: Is there a way to dismiss or hide this specific warning in the admin panel if we choose to stay on the stable, Ubuntu-provided version? Right now, it feels a bit persistent.

Real-world impact: For someone who is not a professional sysadmin, manually upgrading the database engine across a server hosting multiple critical applications (WordPress, Nextcloud, FreeScout, etc.) is a high-risk operation. If 10.11 is still fully functional for Flarum 2.x, I would strongly prefer to stick with it until Ubuntu itself deprecates it.

Could anyone shed some light on the actual roadmap for MariaDB 10.11 support in Flarum 2.x? I just want to make sure I’m not painting myself into a corner by relying on the default, stable Ubuntu packages.

Thanks in advance for your time and help!

IanM

peopleinside I assume you're seeing this:

I'm speaking here as a Flarum developer, not as a sysadmin.

There are no plans on our side to drop support for MariaDB 10.11 as this stage. I cannot say for certain how long we can support it, this will be dictated largely by Laravel. Flarum 2.0 runs on parts of Laravel 13 under the hood, and we plan to keep up to date with the annual Laravel releases each year. Flarum 2.0's supported database versions are extremely close to what is supported upstream, with only a very small difference at the bottom end of the scale (so that Flarum guarantees JSON column support).

Early next year, Laravel 14 will ship. If that raises the minimum DB versions, then we will have to follow suit, in order to be able to keep tracking.

Similarly, I strongly suspect, but have no evidence yet, that Laravel 14 will drop PHP 8.3 support, meaning we will shift our PHP version support in line (Likely PHP 8.4, 8.5 & 8.6).

Laravel 14 will likely hit at some point during the Flarum 2.2 cycle, so any changes to floor version support will likely not land until Flarum 2.2 or 2.3

peopleinside

This warning is quite annoying.
Cannot be hide while my server still using a supported version and the latest Ubuntu Maria DB version rovided.

Thanks for the clarification.
For now the upgrade will be almost near the impossibile for me.

While I run already PHP 8.5 and is not a big problem install PHP 8.5, upgrade Maria DB can cause a big issue if who do this is not extremely expert and the suggested version of MariaDB is not part of the Ubuntu so need also force maybe a external install.

For now seems I have to ignore this yellow warning in the admin that say I'm using an outdated version but this is not fully true, on my opinion because I'm using the latest version provided by Ubuntu. The operative system 😊

Xkyer

In my case, the upgrade went smoothly after adding the official MariaDB repository and upgrading from 10.11.14 to 11.8.8. The database remained intact and Flarum was able to access all tables normally.

The only issue I encountered afterwards was a PHP memory limit, not a MariaDB problem. PHP-FPM was limited to 128M, and Flarum hit that limit while processing the updated dependencies (axy/sourcemap), resulting in a 500 error. Increasing the PHP-FPM memory limit to 256M and restarting PHP-FPM resolved the issue.

navindra

Xkyer the upgrade went smoothly after adding the official MariaDB repository and upgrading from 10.11.14 to 11.8.8.

I'm a bit confused. What does the MariaDB repository have to do with it?

According to this, you have to run mariadb-upgrade:

https://mariadb.com/docs/server/clients-and-utilities/deployment-tools/mariadb-upgrade

Karl

navindra I think he may be referring to upgrading MariaDB via Docker.

navindra

Karl I see. I guess I also have to do the same thing as I'm using mariadb:11.1.5 straight from Docker.

It seems like I should just go straight to 12.3.3.

Karl

navindra it’s whatever floats your boat man. If something doesn’t work right, roll back via backups 🙂

navindra

Karl I would really really really hate to roll back. At the same time, it seems pointless to invest in an upgrade to a version that isn't even the latest stable version. 🚣

Xkyer

navindra

My boat couldn't get 11.8 simply by running sudo apt upgrade because Ubuntu's repository only offered 10.11. That's why I added the official MariaDB repository. After that, apt could see MariaDB 11.8.8 and I was able to upgrade from 10.11.14 to 11.8.8. So the repository was needed only because of Ubuntu's available MariaDB version, not because Flarum required a special repository.

Karl

Xkyer that makes more sense 🙂