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    Perform a software update

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    Johan Harén
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    In practice, performing an update is no more complicated than pressing a button in the web administration, and waiting. However, in order to be prepared for the unexpected, following the guidelines below is recommended.

    • Read the release notes
    • Dedicate a possible maintenance window of at least an hour, even though the process typically takes 5 minutes
    • Be prepared to access the console in case of failure
    • Make an external backup (export; copy-paste for example) of your configuration before updating
    • If you are using a virtualised system, you can block all in/outbound email traffic to the node, and take a snapshot of the machine (and merge the snapshot after verifying that it works)
    • If you have a cluster, you can update one node at a time. Try to avoid any changes to the configuration until all clustered nodes are running on the same version

    Online update

    To perform an online update, go to the Operations -> Software update page, select the hosts that you would like to update, and press the Install button to start the update.

    Update-webui.png

    Offline update

    To perform an offline update, begin with downloading the latest software image for your current version. You can find the URL for it at http://dl.halon.se/sp/version/?version=5.5-mappy-amd64 where 5.5-mappy-amd64 is the current version you're running. Then enable root login, and login using, for example, SSH. Upload the latest image to the storage partition of Halon using, for example, FTP or SCP:

    # cd /storage/
# ftp http://192.168.0.1/halon-sp-image-x.x-amd64

    Then run the following command to initiate the update process, followed by a reboot to apply the update:

    # updated --install halon-sp-image-x.x-amd64
Update instructions ready for next reboot
# reboot

    Technical description

    Under the hood, the complete software update cycle consists of the following steps:

    1. Download is requested by the API call updateDownloadStart

      • The updated process queries dl.halon.se for software update information and downloads the update file (tarball) to /storage/halonrecoveryimage and verifies it according to the public key

    1. Installation is requested by the API call updateInstall

      • The updated process writes an update instruction file to /cfg

      • The system reboots

      • The boot loader detects the update instruction file, and boots the recovery partition and

        • Reads the update instruction file and start in non-interactive mode

        • Mounts the disk specified in the update instruction

        • Checks so that the specified update file exists

        • Erases the system partition

        • Extracts the update file to the system partition

        • Removes the update instruction file

        • Reboots

    2. The system returns to normal operation, using the new software release

      • The backend process upgrades the configuration if necessary, changing its format

      • The backend process upgrades the database if necessary, which can take some time depending on size

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