Roll Back a Deployment¶

When to Use This Guide¶

Use this guide when a new deployment version introduces errors and you need to quickly restore a previously working version.

Rolling back deployments is common when:

a new application release causes failures
a container image update breaks functionality
configuration changes introduce errors

Quick Commands

kubectl rollout history deployment <deployment-name>
kubectl rollout undo deployment <deployment-name>
kubectl rollout status deployment <deployment-name>

Common Rollback Tasks¶

Task	Command
View rollout history	`kubectl rollout history deployment web-app`
Roll back to previous version	`kubectl rollout undo deployment web-app`
Roll back to specific revision	`kubectl rollout undo deployment web-app --to-revision=2`
Check rollout progress	`kubectl rollout status deployment web-app`

Step 1 — View Deployment History¶

Check previous deployment versions.

kubectl rollout history deployment web-app

Example:

REVISION  CHANGE-CAUSE
1         Initial deployment
2         Update container image
3         Updated configuration

Step 2 — Roll Back the Deployment¶

Restore the previous working revision.

kubectl rollout undo deployment web-app

Kubernetes replaces the current pods with the previous version.

Step 3 — Verify Rollback Status¶

Check rollout progress.

kubectl rollout status deployment web-app

Then confirm pods are running.

kubectl get pods

Common Issues¶

Rollback Does Not Fix the Problem

Possible causes:

configuration issue still present
external dependency failure
database migration mismatch

Inspect logs:

kubectl logs <pod-name>

Quick Rollback Workflow

kubectl rollout history deployment web-app
kubectl rollout undo deployment web-app
kubectl rollout status deployment web-app

Deployment Management - Scale a Deployment - Restart a Deployment - Update Container Image

Troubleshooting

Debug a Crashing Pod