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Packaged update to 5.3

Hello,

I just performed the 5.2 to 5.3 upgrade on our small LEM system and have a couple of observations.

1. The agent update on Linux systems (RH) indicated it succeeded but in reality it didn't. We needed to re-run the setup.bin to get it to update and re-register with the manager.

2. Version 5.2 came with a nicely packaged zip file that allowed me to set up a website where my engineers and users could go to find documentation and download agents. The 5.3 update was not packaged this way. Is there a plan to eventually update that package with 5.3 content?

Thanks

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phil3

Hello. Welcome to thwack!

The first issue you listed is consistent with behavior that we fixed in version 5.3. See KB3323 for more information.

As far as the second issue goes, I'll pass that along to the LEM Product Manager.

Thanks!

FormerMember

To follow up to Phil's follow up....

For the upgrade, we did upload a zip file that only contains the upgrade bits (the upgrade, Console, and Reports), but we chose not to include the agents because of the size of the download. This way it was more of a menu of choices - you can download just the minimum to upgrade, then follow up (if you don't want to remote update or need to deploy new agents) by downloading ONLY the agent and supplemental bits you need.

We could continue to provide an "Everything" download (which is basically the same thing you'd get if you downloaded all of the individual zip files), though it's not something we intended to do. We're about what makes sense for you guys, though, so if bandwidth is cheap and it's more convenient to do that way, we'll definitely consider that heavily.

Regarding the docs: we're also in the process of making some updates to the User Guide, so we opted to host that on SolarWinds online only for the time being. The only doc contained in the downloads is the Quick Start Guide (new downloads) and the Upgrade Guide (in the upgrade download), but we'll include the User Guide in future downloads.

Thanks a ton for your feedback. This is the first time we're trying it this way.

FormerMember

I'm not sure it's consistent. What I meant to say is we had a functioning 4.6.0 Linux agent (what shipped with LEM 5.2) where I had to use the process described in the KB article above to get it working.

When I upgraded the manager and the console to 5.3 the automatic update indicated it was done for the Linux systems but the agent version still showed 4.6.0 and no data was flowing from the tools (confirmed log entries not forwarded) yet the tools would allow me to start and stop them. It was strange behavior to say the least. I re-ran the new setup.bin and everything sync'd up. I did notice the issue with the host name. The 4.6.0 agent only registered the host name, the 5.3 agent registers the entire dns entry. On the one I didn't delete the agent updated the registration on the manager but searches for historic data need to include both formats to merge them.

The Windows agents seemed to update fine, though they took a while.

As for the documentation, I modified the html and pushed the new install files to my site but it was a pain to say the least. As trivial as it may sound, the 5.2 package allowed me to stand up a website in minutes to distribute the content to my team. I wish all software packages were delivered that way.

FormerMember

Nicole,

I understand completely. Perhaps a zipped package that only contains the updated files (including new .htm files to reference them) would be a good compromise.

As it was I updated the html on the installers.htm and the agent_install.htm to reference the new versions and added a section for Linux 64 bit.

Again, it's trivial but worth noting. Not really a big deal.

Oh, I almost forgot, 5.3 seems to be working very well! :-)

Mark

FormerMember

For clarity:

Linux agents will show "Current" and be on "4.6.0" because there was no mechanism to remote update linux agents (to 5.3 from the manager). That basically means "4.6.0 is current for your platform because I have no way of updating you to anything else." So, if the Console said "Current" but still 4.6.0, that'd explain that. Running the setup.bin ACTUALLY upgraded it to 5.3 (at which point it will also say "Current" because it's newer than the available package).

In future versions, we will be able to remotely update/manage agents from the same view, so the next time they will say "outdated" just like Windows agents.

Just taking a guess, but based on everything you've said, I think that might be what you saw.

FormerMember

Yep, that's exactly what happened. Thanks for connecting the dots.