# MariaDB Version Selection (Support for 11.8+ LTS)

[tonic-6101]

Summary

Frappe Manager currently ships with a fixed MariaDB 10.6 and provides no mechanism for users to select or upgrade the MariaDB version. MariaDB 11.8 LTS (the current long-term support release since June 2025) introduces native vector search — a feature many developers need for AI/RAG applications. Please add support for selecting the MariaDB version, with 11.8 as an available option.

Current Behavior

• Frappe Manager uses MariaDB 10.6 in its Docker setup
• There is no --db-version flag or configuration option
• Users cannot upgrade MariaDB without manually modifying Docker internals, which breaks Frappe Manager's ability to manage the instance
• This blocks developers who need MariaDB 11.8's vector search capabilities

Expected Behavior

# Create a bench with MariaDB 11.8
fm create mybench --db-version 11.8

# Or configure globally
fm config set db-version 11.8

At minimum, Frappe Manager should offer:

• MariaDB 10.6 (current default, for backward compatibility)
• MariaDB 11.4 (previous LTS)
• MariaDB 11.8 (current LTS, with vector search)

Why This Matters

MariaDB 11.8 LTS is production-ready

MariaDB 11.8 has been GA since June 2025 and is now on version 11.8.6. It is the official yearly LTS release, supported for 3 years. Amazon RDS added support for it in December 2025.

Vector search is a major feature

MariaDB 11.8 introduces native VECTOR data type, similarity search functions, and HNSW indexing — critical for RAG, semantic search, and AI-powered applications. This is the headline feature of the release.

Community demand exists

• The Frappe Forum thread on MariaDB 11.7 vector search shows developers actively wanting this capability
• At least one developer has confirmed ERPNext v15 running successfully on MariaDB 11.8.3 in production
• Issue Support to choose database type: Postgres or MariaDB #229 already requests database type selection (Postgres vs MariaDB) — version selection is a natural complement

MariaDB 10.6 is aging

MariaDB 10.6 was released in 2021. While still under long-term maintenance, it lacks features from 5 years of MariaDB development. New Ubuntu LTS versions ship with MariaDB 10.11+ by default, making 10.6 increasingly difficult to justify.

Proposed Implementation

Option A: Docker image tag parameter

Since Frappe Manager is Docker-based, the simplest approach would be to parameterize the MariaDB Docker image tag:

# Currently hardcoded (example)
mariadb:10.6

# Could become configurable
mariadb:${MARIADB_VERSION:-10.6}

Option B: Per-bench configuration

Store MariaDB version in the bench config, allowing different benches to use different versions:

fm create mybench --db-version 11.8
fm create legacy-bench --db-version 10.6

Migration path

For existing benches, an upgrade command would be ideal:

fm db upgrade mybench --to 11.8 --backup

This should:

1. Create a full database backup
2. Stop the bench
3. Swap the MariaDB container to the new version
4. Run mariadb-upgrade
5. Restart and verify

Additional Notes

• MariaDB 11.8 is backward-compatible with 10.6 data files — upgrade is seamless for InnoDB tables
• The only known config change needed is innodb_snapshot_isolation = OFF (per community testing)
• This feature would also benefit users who simply want to stay on the latest LTS for security and performance improvements, independent of vector search

Related Issues

• Support to choose database type: Postgres or MariaDB #229 — Support to choose database type: Postgres or MariaDB (open)
• frappe/frappe#28242 — Outdated MariaDB version warning in Frappe framework

References

• MariaDB 11.8 LTS Release
• MariaDB Version EOL Dates
• Amazon RDS MariaDB 11.8 Support