Upgrading Trustgrid Appliance Nodes

How an Appliance Node Upgrades

The upgrade process will:

  1. Upgrade the Trustgrid application package. As part of this process the node will backup the current running version.
  2. Apply security updates to install operating system packages.
  3. Reboot the Trustgrid node appliance.

For details on what this looks like from a network level see the Node Upgrade Process KB article.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Is the upgrade disruptive? - Yes. While the appliance is upgrading services will remain available, though performance may be degraded. However, the reboot step will make all services unavailable until the appliance fully boots and starts the Trustgrid service. Typically this takes a few minutes depending on the underlying hardware.
  • How long will the upgrade take? - This is highly variable but typically this takes between 10 minutes and an hour. Below are a list of things that influence how long the upgrade takes:
    • Internet bandwidth - This determines how quickly the node can download the updates.
    • Time since previous update - The longer a node goes without updating the more security packages are likely to be required.
    • CPU and disk performance - The upgrade process involves significant CPU processing and to a lesser extent disk I/O. The upgrade process is single-threaded, so core speed is more important than number of cores.

Best Practices

  • Upgrade nodes regularly to ensure access to the latest features and security updates
  • For clustered nodes:
    • Upgrade the standby node
    • Change the standby node to be the configured master/active and wait for it to claim this role.
    • Upgrade the new standby node in the cluster
  • Utilize an Alert Suppression Window to reduce the number of alarms generated if upgrading many nodes.

Required Permissions

In order to perform the below actions a user must have a policy applied with the following permissions to the nodes that will be upgraded.

  "statements": [
    {
      "effect": "allow",
      "actions": [
        "nodes::read",
        "nodes::upgrade",
        "nodes::manage",
        "nodes::service:node-upgrade",
        "portal::access"

      ]
    }
  ],

Upgrading a Single Node

  1. Navigate to the node that will be upgraded.
  2. From the tool bar click the Upgrade button.
    Toolbar showing an Upgrade (surrounded by a red rectangle), Refresh and Info buttons.
    Upgrade button
  3. When prompted enter the node’s name and click confirm.
    Dialogue asking to enter the node name to confirm
    Node upgrade confirmation
  4. A dialogue will indicate the command was successfully sent.
    Dialogue stating 'Upgrade in progress
    Node upgrade response

Upgrading Multiple Nodes

  1. Navigate to the Nodes table.
  2. (Optional) Use the search box or apply a tag filter to filter the displayed nodes.
  3. Use the check boxes to select the desired nodes.
    Nodes table showing two nodes selected
    Nodes table
  4. From the actions dropdown select Upgrade.
    Action dropdown menu with red box around Upgrade option
    Action > Upgrade
  5. When prompted, confirm you want to proceed with the bulk upgrade.
    Confirm bulk upgrade
  6. A table will be presented showing the status of each node upgrade request.
    Upgrade Operation Report table showing two nodes were requested to upgrade and both are in progress
    Upgrade Operation Report

Monitoring Upgrade Progress

You can monitor the upgrade status from a node’s Info tab.

Info tab, Upgrade in Progress

There are two fields

Field NameDescription
Upgrade Status

Shows the most recent status of an upgrade operation on this node. Possibly values are:

  • In Progress
  • Completed
  • Failed
Completion TimeShows a timestamp for the last time an upgrade operation completed.

Example of Completed upgrade status