Upgrade

Workbench

These instructions describe the configuration requirements and how to upgrade Posit Workbench from a supported product version to the latest version.

We recommend that you upgrade to the latest version of Workbench. Please review the Release Notes prior to performing an upgrade.
These upgrade procedures are not incremental, however, if you must upgrade to a previous supported version of Workbench, select your desired version below to verify that you are not using any deprecated configurations.

To upgrade from Open Source to Workbench, follow the procedures available in the Upgrading from Open Source to Workbench section.

Upgrade requirements

Important

These instructions only cover upgrading Posit Workbench on the same server and between supported versions. If you are planning on changing servers or you are upgrading from an older, unsupported version, please see the How to Upgrade and/or Migrate Posit Team guide.

The following document covers adjustments that may need to be made to your configuration due to breaking changes between versions. To use this document, select the version you are currently on, or start at the oldest version that is newer than your version from the list below, and then follow the instructions until the end of the page:

2024.12.0

If running Workbench behind a proxy server, you may need to update your NO_PROXY configuration: - HTTP Proxy variables are now supported in rserver and rsession, so it’s important to include local addresses to Job Launcher sessions and other internal services in your NO_PROXY list. - See the Outgoing Proxies section of the Posit Workbench Administration Guide for more information. (rstudio-pro#5893)

2025.09.0

With this release, Positron Pro sessions are moving from preview to General Availability (GA). The upgrade process will automatically back up any existing Positron Pro configuration files to ensure production-ready defaults are properly installed.

During package upgrade, the following files will be backed up if they exist:

/etc/rstudio/positron.conf as /etc/rstudio/positron.conf.bak
/etc/rstudio/positron-user-settings.conf as /etc/rstudio/positron-user-settings.conf.bak

After completing the package upgrade, carefully review the backed up files and the new default configuration files and merge any customizations as needed.

2026.01.1

If your users have signed into GitHub within Positron (for GitHub Copilot, Pull Requests, or other GitHub integrations), they must sign out and sign back in to continue using Positron Assistant after upgrading to this version.

Direct users to the GitHub Copilot authentication change section of the User Guide for detailed instructions.

2026.04.0

Positron Pro is now enabled by default on SUSE Linux 15 SP7 and openSUSE 15.6. On fresh installs, the default positron.conf and positron-user-settings.json configuration files are automatically generated, matching the behavior on other supported platforms. No action is needed if you are upgrading an existing installation that already has these files configured.

Positron Assistant provider and model settings have changed from a centralized format to per-provider individual settings. If you have configured any of the following settings in positron-user-settings.json or enforced-settings.json, they must be updated: - positron.assistant.enabledProviders — replace with individual positron.assistant.provider.<name>.enable settings (for example, positron.assistant.provider.amazonBedrock.enable: true) - positron.assistant.models.preference.byProvider — replace with individual positron.assistant.models.preference.<name> settings (for example, positron.assistant.models.preference.anthropic: "Claude Sonnet 4.5") - positron.assistant.models.custom — replace with individual positron.assistant.models.overrides.<name> settings (for example, positron.assistant.models.overrides.customProvider: [...])

Positron automatically migrates these settings in a user’s personal settings.json, but does not auto-migrate Workbench configuration files. See the Positron Assistant admin guide for the updated settings.

Upgrade planning

Notify users ahead of time of the upgrade. You can use the admin notification feature.

Air-gapped environments

To upgrade your Workbench version in an air-gapped (offline) environment:

Download the appropriate .rpm or .deb file using the commands below on an internet-connected machine.
Securely copy the file to the air-gapped environment following your approved process.
Follow the upgrade procedures below on the air-gapped server.

Upgrade procedures

Check if there are any active sessions running:
```
sudo rstudio-server active-sessions
```

If there are active sessions, then suspend all active user sessions:
```
sudo rstudio-server suspend-all
```

Put the old version of the server into offline mode:
```
sudo rstudio-server offline
```
Download and upgrade Workbench:

RHEL 9 / 10

curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/rhel9/x86_64/rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.04.0-x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.04.0-x86_64.rpm

RHEL 8

curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/rhel8/x86_64/rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.04.0-x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install rstudio-workbench-rhel-2026.04.0-x86_64.rpm

curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/jammy/amd64/rstudio-workbench-2026.04.0-amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./rstudio-workbench-2026.04.0-amd64.deb

curl -O https://download2.rstudio.org/server/opensuse15/x86_64/rstudio-workbench-2026.04.0-x86_64.rpm
sudo zypper install rstudio-workbench-2026.04.0-x86_64.rpm

Note

For older versions of RStudio/Workbench, please review the Previous Versions page.

Restart the server:
```
sudo rstudio-server restart
```
Put the new version online:
```
sudo rstudio-server online
```

The service will never be truly down (in the sense that users see a failure to connect). The offline mode keeps users from trying to start new sessions while you’re doing the upgrade.

Your configuration and settings remain unchanged from the previous version, and if you are running Workbench, your license status remains untouched as well.

Upgrading Positron

You can upgrade Positron independently of Workbench using the CLI. See Upgrading Positron.

Downgrading

Important

These instructions cover downgrading (rolling back) Workbench on the same server between supported versions. This only works with the default SQLite3 database; Postgres databases need to revert to a previous snapshot.

Notify users before the downgrade. For RStudio Pro sessions, you can use the Notifications feature.
Check for active sessions:
```
sudo rstudio-server active-sessions
```

If there are active sessions, then suspend all active user sessions:
```
sudo rstudio-server suspend-all
```

Put the old version of the server into offline mode:
```
sudo rstudio-server offline
```

Uninstall Workbench:

sudo yum remove rstudio-server

sudo apt-get remove rstudio-server

sudo zypper remove rstudio-server

Download your preferred version of Workbench from our Supported Versions page. Installation instructions for each respective version of Workbench are provided on the same page. You can follow those instructions, as if it were a new Workbench installation.
Lastly, put the newly installed version in online mode:
```
sudo rstudio-server online
```