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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 to the appliance in several ways:

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

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

  • OS Upgrade: Delivers upgrades to the appliance operating system when there is a major new version available. The OS must be updated when this option is available in order to stay up to date with security updates.

Notes

  • To supervise system changes, we recommend manually updating your appliance and not using the automatic scheduling feature.
  • 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 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.

  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.

    • Click Update Now to install the updates.
    • After the updates are installed, click Close.
    • If the Reboot button is highlighted, click it to restart the appliance.
    • Log in to the Appliance Administration console again.

    b. If the OS Upgrade button is displayed and shows a badge indicating an upgrade is available, click OS Upgrade. If not, skip this step.

    • Click Upgrade to upgrade the operating system.
    • Once complete, click Close.
    • If the Reboot button is highlighted, click it to restart the appliance.
    • Log in to the Appliance Administration console again.

    c. If the Product Upgrade button shows a badge indicating a product upgrade is available, and you wish to upgrade product versions at this time, click Product 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.
    • Click Reboot.
    • Log in to the Appliance Administration console again.

    d. In the Appliance Administration console click Cluster. Under Cluster Status, wait until the updated node shows a status of Ready,SchedulingDisabled. 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.

    e. 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,SchedulingDisabled again in the Cluster View.

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

  3. Once all of the nodes in the cluster have been updated, 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. This process can take up to 15 minutes.

  5. In the Cluster view, click Uncordon All Nodes.

  6. Once all nodes return to a Ready status, the cluster is ready for use. This process can take up to 15 minutes.

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=MyState/L=MyCity/O=MyOrg/OU=MyDepartment/CN=smt.mycompany.com"

    Replace the subject's attribute values with your own.

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.