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Veritas NetBackup™ Appliance Upgrade Guide

Last Published: 2019-01-08

Product(s): Appliances (3.1.1)

Introduction
1. About upgrades to NetBackup appliance software version 3.1.1 and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system
Upgrade planning
1. Guidelines and best practices for upgrading NetBackup appliances
  1. About upgrades for NetBackup Appliance HA setups
  2. Upgrade time estimation
Pre-upgrade tasks
1. Pre-upgrade tasks for appliance upgrades
Performing the upgrade
1. Methods for downloading appliance software release updates
2. Installing a NetBackup appliance software update using the NetBackup Appliance Shell Menu
Post upgrade tasks
1. Post upgrade tasks for 3.1.1 upgrades
Troubleshooting
1. Troubleshooting upgrade issues

Appliance behavior during upgrades

The upgrade mechanism takes the following measures to ensure that the upgrade process completes successfully:

Determines if the available update is newer than the version of software that is currently installed.
Determines if there is enough available space on the appliance to install the release update.
Stops the processes that are currently active on the appliance.
Checks for any active NetBackup jobs. The upgrade proceeds only if it is determined that no active jobs are detected.
The appliance software upgrade occurs only after all of these criteria are met.
For upgrades from 2.7.x and 3.0, the appliance restarts four times during the upgrade progress. The following describes what takes place at each reboot:
- First reboot - installs the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system.
- Second reboot - initializes the appliance using the new RHEL operating system.
- Third reboot - restores the appliance configuration.
- Fourth reboot - initializes the restored appliance configuration with the RHEL operating system.
  After the first reboot, the NetBackup Appliance Web Console and any SSH-based connections to the server are unavailable until all reboots have completed. This condition may last 2 hours or more, depending on the complexity of the appliance configuration. Do not attempt to manually reboot the appliance during this time. You can use the Veritas Remote Management interface (IPMI) to view the system reboot status. In addition, you may view the logs under /log or wait for the appliance to send an email upon completion of the upgrade process.
  After the third reboot occurs, you can go to the Appliance Install Manager (AIM) window to view the upgrade progress.
  See About the Appliance Install Manager.
For upgrades from 3.1, the appliance restarts two times during the upgrade progress. The following describes what takes place at each reboot:
- First reboot - updates the operating system and appliance software.
- Second reboot - initializes the restored appliance configuration.
When the upgrade progress starts, you can go to the AIM window to view the upgrade progress.
Before the upgrade completes, a self-test is performed automatically.
If the self-test fails, the upgrade pauses and you are prompted to select one of the following:
- Attempt again to try the self-test again.
- Rollback now to roll back to the previous version.
You must respond on the AIM window on the IPMI console within one hour, otherwise a rollback occurs automatically.
Note:
If you select Attempt again and the self-test still fails, the upgrade pauses again and prompts with the same options.
See About the Appliance Install Manager.
After a successful appliance upgrade, the Fibre Transport Media Server (FTMS) reboots automatically. As a result, the Fibre Channel (FC) ports must be re-scanned to allow any SAN Client computers to reconnect to the Fibre Transport (FT) devices. The upgrade procedures include the details on how to re-scan the FC ports.