Astronomer Certified (AC) is a Debian-based, production-ready distribution of Apache Airflow that mirrors the open source project and undergoes additional levels of rigorous testing conducted by our team. New versions of AC are issued regularly based on Apache Airflow’s community release schedule.
This Docker image is hosted on Astronomer’s Docker registry and allows you to run Airflow on Astronomer. All projects require that you specify an AC image in your Dockerfile.
This document provides information on the following:
For guidelines on how to upgrade, read Upgrade Apache Airflow on Astronomer. For information about Astro Runtime’s support policy, see Runtime release and lifecycle policy.
To meet the unique needs of different operating environments, Astronomer Certified (AC) versions are associated with the following release channels:
All releases of AC are considered stable. The LTS release channel is a subset of the stable release channel that promises additional stability, reliability, and support from our team.
For users that want to keep up with the latest Astronomer and Airflow features on an incremental basis, we recommend upgrading to new versions of AC as soon as they are made generally available. This should be regardless of release channel. New versions of AC are issued regularly and depend on the Apache Airflow community release schedule.
If your organization prefers less frequent upgrades and functional changes, Astronomer recommends following the LTS release channel exclusively.
Astronomer Certified follows Semantic Versioning. This means that Astronomer ships Major, Minor, and Patch releases of AC in the format of major.minor.patch-hotfix.
For AC 2.1.3-5, for example:
2..1.3-5An AC Docker image will be published for every major and minor version of Apache Airflow. For example, AC images that correspond with Apache Airflow 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 etc. will be available on Astronomer as they’re released in the open source project.
It is considered safe to upgrade to minor and patch versions within a major version. Upgrade guidance for major and LTS versions is provided with each release. There is no relation between an AC release’s version number and its release channel.
All hotfix releases of AC have a corresponding changelog which specifies the date the hotfix was released and all individual changes made to it. Bugs that are reported by the wider Airflow community are often fixed in AC before they are fixed in the subsequent open source release.
AC Docker images come in two variants:
quay.io/astronomer/ap-airflow:<version>-onbuildquay.io/astronomer/ap-airflow:<version>For example, the images for Astronomer Certified 2.3.1 would be:
quay.io/astronomer/ap-airflow:2.3.1quay.io/astronomer/ap-airflow:2.3.1-onbuildFor the smoothest, out-of-the-box Airflow experience, we strongly recommend and default to buster-onbuild images in your project’s Dockerfile. These images incorporate Docker ONBUILD commands to copy and scaffold your Astro project directory so you can more easily pass those files to the containers running each core Airflow component.
For complex use cases that require customizing AC base image, see Customize your Airflow image on Astronomer.
If a major stability bug in Astronomer Certified is identified by Astronomer, a fix is backported to all LTS versions and only the latest stable version. For users on a stable version that is not latest, Astronomer support will recommend that you upgrade. Major issues in this category may result in significant delays in task scheduling as well as potential data loss.
If a major security issue is identified, a fix will be backported and made available as a new AC hotfix version for all available stable and LTS releases. Major issues in this category are classified by a combination of impact and exploitability.
In rare instances, Astronomer support might make an exception and backport a bug or security fix to a release that is beyond the stated commitment. To submit a request for consideration, contact your customer success manager.
The maintenance period for an Astronomer Certified version depends on its release channel:
To fix bugs, Astronomer provides patch releases as new images and recommends that organizations install them regularly to ensure optimum performance. Upgrading only when an issue occurs can delay the resolution of the issue.
For each major.minor pair, only the latest patch and hot-fix combination is supported at any given time. If you report an issue with an Astronomer Certified patch or hot-fix version that is not latest, the Astronomer Support team will always ask that you upgrade as a first step to resolution. For example, if Astronomer Certified 2.2.3 is the latest patch in the 2.2.x series, the Support team would encourage any user who reports an issue with Astronomer Certified 2.2.2 to first upgrade to 2.2.3 before starting to troubleshoot the issue.
Within the maintenance window of each Astronomer Certified version, the following is true:
When the maintenance window for a version of AC ends, the following is true:
To ensure reliability, service is not interrupted when Astronomer Deployments are running unsupported versions of AC. You can use the Astro CLI to access unsupported AC versions for local development and testing.
houston.config.deployments.enableSystemAdminCanCreateDeprecatedAirflows: true in your values.yaml file. See Apply a config change.Maintenance is discontinued on the last day of the month for a given version. For example, if the maintenance window for a version of Astronomer Certified is January - June of a given year, that version is maintained by Astronomer until the last day of June.
The following tables list the lifecycles for each published version of Astronomer Certified. These timelines are based on the LTS and Stable release channel maintenance policies.
¹ In November 2022, Astronomer Certified 2.3 was reclassified as an LTS release with only 12 months of support. Astronomer recommends upgrading or migrating to Astro Runtime 5.0.x to receive long term support for Apache Airflow 2.3 through October 2023. See Migrate to Astro Runtime.
If you have any questions or concerns, contact Astronomer support.