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Updating the Appliance

What's required for updates?

  • An activation key to register the update channel.

  • Each node in the cluster must be in a ready state before you attempt to update.

Registering the appliance for software updates

To receive online updates, which reduce the overhead of managing security patches and bug fixes, register the appliance. See Installing the Appliance for instructions.

Manage appliance software updates

Software updates are delivered through two mechanisms in the appliance:

  • Online Update: Delivers security updates to the OS and installed products. This should be used regularly to keep your system up to date.

  • Upgrade: Delivers more significant upgrades to the installed products. Product upgrades require a new activation key and should only be done after proper planning.

Notes

  • To supervise system changes, we recommend manually updating your appliance and not using the automatic scheduling feature.
  • Both Online Updates and Upgrades occasionally require rebooting the appliance. A "Reboot Needed" option is displayed in the upper right corner of the Appliance Administration console when this is called for.

Preparing to update

  • Be prepared to supply the email address and activation key that were used during appliance registration. Product upgrades require a new activation key.

  • To ensure easy recovery in case of errors, take a snapshot of the current configuration before updating.

Caution

During the update process, the cluster will be unavailable for end users. Plan your maintenance window accordingly.

Installing updates and upgrades

To install either online updates or upgrades, first ensure all nodes in the deployment are in a Ready state using the Cluster view in the Appliance Administration console. Then perform the following steps.

  1. In the Cluster view, click Cordon All Nodes. The status of each node will change to Ready/SchedulingDisabled. This step can be safely skipped if this button is not available, it is only available in more recent versions of the appliance.

  2. On each node in the cluster, update one node at a time by repeating the following steps:

    a. In the Appliance Administration console, click Online Update.

    b. Click Update Now to install the updates.

    c. After the updates are installed, click Close.

    d. If the Reboot button is highlighted, click it to restart the appliance.

    e. If the Upgrade button shows a badge indicating an Upgrade is available, and you wish to upgrade product versions at this time, click Upgrade. If not, skip this step.

    • Click Start then review the license.
    • Register using the email address used during appliance registration and the new activation key.
    • Click OK on the Update Now dialog. Wait while the upgrade is performed.

    f. Click Reboot. After the reboot finishes, in the Appliance Administration console click Cluster. Under Cluster Status, wait until the updated node shows a status of Ready. It can take up to 15 minutes for the node to become ready.

    • Throughout the cluster update process, it is normal to see warnings and errors in the lower sections of the Cluster view. These will clear once the entire update process is complete.

    g. Click Online Update again to check for and install any new updates that are available. If updates were installed and a reboot was required, wait for the node to show Ready again in the Cluster View.

    h. Move on to the next node in the cluster.

  3. Once all of the nodes in the cluster have been updated and are ready, in the Cluster view click Scale Cluster on any node.

  4. Wait for the cluster to return to a healthy state with all nodes showing Ready,SchedulingDisabled, or Ready if Cordon was not available. This process can take up to 15 minutes.

  5. In the Cluster view, click Uncordon All Nodes. This step can be safely skipped if this button is not available.

  6. Once all nodes return to a Ready status, the cluster is ready for use.

Using the Subscription Management Tool (SMT) to manage appliance updates

You can use the Micro Focus Subscription Management Tool (SMT), version 2.0, to provide appliance updates on SLES 15 SP5 or OpenSUSE Leap 15 SP5 platforms.

  • Learn about SMT

  • Installing the SMT server

  • Creating a certificate

    SMT 2.0 does not automatically create TLS certificates to be used by Apache. You can create certificates manually before configuring SMT.

    For example:

    openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout /etc/ssl/servercerts/serverkey.pem -out /etc/ssl/servercerts/servercert.pem -sha256 -days 3650 -nodes -subj "/C=US/ST=WA/L=Tacoma/O=OpenText/OU=CompanySectionName/CN=smt.microfocus.com"

    Replace CN with your own value.

After successfully installing the SMT server locally and creating the certificates:

  1. In appliance console, click Online Update.

  2. Select Local SMT as the service type.

  3. Specify the fully qualified SMT hostname, for example, smt.microfocus.com.

  4. Click Register. It will take a few minutes for the updates to become available.