Upgrading the RSCD Agent using an Agent Installer Job

You can upgrade an enrolled RSCD agent by using the TrueSight Server Automation built-in Agent Installer Job. This single-phase operation comprises all the checks, staging, and commits in one job, in-line with the existing Agent installation job. The upgrade can be performed on the following platforms:

  • Solaris
  • Linux
  • Windows
  • AIX

Perform the upgrade by using one of the following approaches:

Limitations

Note that following limitations in upgrading RSCD agents using Agent installer job:

  • If the Agent is installed on a Linux, Solaris, or AIX server, and if it is installed on a non-default path (see Installing-components-in-non-default-installation-paths-using-the-local-flag), upgrade does not work as expected. In this scenario, the agent installer job upgrades the RSCD agent to the default path, instead of the non default (user-defined) path.
    Workaround    : You must manually upgrade the agents on non-default locations, if you want the updated version to remain on the existing non-default path. For more information, see Upgrading-components-using-the-local-option-on-UNIX-or-Linux.
  • BMC qualifies agent upgrades to the current product release from the previous version and from two versions back. Upgrades from older versions are known to work but are not specifically qualified.
  • The Agent Installer Job cannot uninstall an agent.
  • Agent installers jobs do not support HP-UX target servers. Note that RSCD agents can be installed or upgraded manually on individual HP-UX target servers (see Installing-only-the-RSCD-agent-Linux-and-UNIX). However, you cannot install or upgrade agents using the agent installer job, which is used to install or upgrade agents on a large number of targets simultaneously.
  • When you are using Agent Installer Jobs for upgrading RSCD agents and those jobs are using Automation Principals to communicate to the targets, the NSH client on the Application Server running the Job must be configured to use an NSH Proxy.

Upgrading using an Agent Installer Job

  1. Open the Job folder and right-click the subfolder where you want to create the job.

  2. Select New > Agent Installer Job.
    The Agent Installer Job Wizard opens for creation of an Agent Installer Job.

    Note

    Existing agent installer jobs can only be used for installing the agent on agentless targets. To upgrade the agent, you must create new agent installer jobs and reuse the existing bundle.

  3. Enter basic job information (such as job name and description) on the General panel.
  4. Click Next to display the Options panel.
    The Options panel indicates the agent bundle on which the Agent Installer Job is based and various other settings. See the following figure.
    AIJInstall_MSVC.png
  5. In the Agent Bundle field, navigate to the bundle on which this job is based or keep the default agent bundle.

  6. From Operation Type field, select one of the following operation types:

    • Install - Installs agent on servers with no existing agent
    • Upgrade - Upgrades the agent only on servers with an installed and available agent
    • Install/Upgrade - Installs or upgrades the agent, depending on the current state

    Note

    For Upgrade option and Install/Upgrade option, BMC recommends not to execute any other TrueSight Server Automation Jobs while the RSCD Agent on the server is being upgraded.

  7. You can choose the operation type only during job creation. After the job is created, this field is disabled.

  8. Perform the relevant configuration in the displayed Agent Options fields (depending on your Operation Type selection):

    • Install Options

      Field

      Description

      Update Server Properties

      Update the system with properties from the target servers on which you are installing agents.

      Update Configuration Objects Registration

      Register any configuration objects that are found on the agent and defined in the Configuration Object Dictionary.

      Push Agent ACLs

      Push agent access control lists (ACLs) to the servers that this job targets.
      To push ACLs, the system converts the access control list defined for a server into a users configuration file and pushes that file to the agent. The access control list is derived from user permissions defined in the RBAC system.


    • Upgrade Options

      Field

      Description

      Push Agent ACLs

      Push agent access control lists (ACLs) to the servers that this job targets.
      To push ACLs, the system converts the access control list defined for a server into a users configuration file and pushes that file to the agent. The access control list is derived from user permissions defined in the RBAC system.

      Skip Upgrade

      If this option is selected, upgrade operation will not be executed if there is any other job in progress, due to which agent is already in use.

      Force Upgrade

      If this option is selected, it will go ahead with agent upgrade, which will kill the job in progress, giving precedence to the upgrade operation.


    Note

    The upgrade operation is performed in two steps: copying the installer to the staging area and executing the script to run the upgrade.

    After the installer is copied to the staging area, if another job is found to be in progress (which is using the agent) and the option to skip the upgrade is selected, the upgrade operation will not be executed.

    In the case of a forced upgrade (when the skip upgrade option is not selected), the upgrade operation gets precedence, and kills the the job in progress.

    The upgrade operation can end successfully or fail with error messages or warnings. In either case, the staging directory is deleted at the end of the operation.

  9. Choose the relevant Job Option:
    Field
    Description
    Preserve Staging Area On Failure
    Specifies whether information copied to a staging area on a target server during installation should be preserved if the installation or upgrade fails. By default, this option is not selected, so that when the system has finished installing or upgrading an agent, it automatically deletes all files in the staging area.
    New in 8.9.02Install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (Windows Only)
    Specifies whether to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 3 on the target server before agent installation. By default, this option is selected.From TrueSight Server Automation 8.9.02 and later, Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 3 must be installed for all Microsoft Windows RSCD agent versions.Note:As a prerequisite to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 3 on Windows 2012 R2, you must have the following patches installed on your server:
    • KB2919442 (Required for 2919355)
    • KB2919355. This patch requires several other patches: clearcompressionflag.exe, KB2919355, KB2932046, KB2959977, KB2937592, KB2938439, and KB2934018. This are all available on the download page for KB2919355.
    For more information about the prerequisites for Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 3, refer to the Microsoft documentation here.
  10. Step through all other wizard panels, as described in Creating-an-Agent-Installer-Job.
  11. Click Finish after completing the last step of the wizard.

Important

If you encounter communication issues with the RSCD agent, such as errors when running jobs or browsing the agent in the TrueSight Server Automation console, and you see the following error message in the rscd.log file:

ERROR rscd - phx-bsmops-01 4432 SYSTEM (Not_available): (Not_availablo): SSL error: ssl\t1 lib.c:3304 error:0A000076:SSL routines:no suitable signature algorithm

Please refer to the troubleshooting section for corrective actions to resolve this issue and ensure successful communication. For more details, see Resolutions for Common Issues.


Info

A custom install path is not retained during an upgrade operation using a native installer. By default, the agent is upgraded to /opt/bmc/bladelogic on a non-windows platform.

Workaround:

If you want to retain a custom path during an upgrade on a non-windows platform, specify the path within the installation command using one of the following methods:

  • RPM-based Linux :  With RPM, append the --prefix option to the command.
    For example, rpm -ivh BladeLogic_RSCD_Agent-8_6-8.6.00.385-rhas4.0-x86_64.rpm --prefix /usr/nsh
  • Solaris: In the response file (/var/sadm/install/admin/default), update the basedir parameter with the custom path value (basedir=/usr/nsh).


Server Locking

While the upgrade script is running on the target, the target will be locked. If you try to execute another job on that target, the following message is displayed:

Server is locked for maintenance activity by a TSA system process.

Server Locking is not supported for the following types of jobs:

  • Snapshot, Audit and Compliance  Jobs: If the Agent upgrade is running on any target server and, during that time, you try to execute a Snapshot, Audit or Compliance Job, these jobs will fail without a Server Locking error message. If the Compliance Job is running during remediation, then the Server Locking error message will be displayed.
  • Patch catalog: If the Agent upgrade is running on the Patch Repository server and, during that time, you try to execute a Patch Catalog job, then the job fails without a Server Locking error message.
  • Execution Task, Batch Jobs: If the Agent upgrade is running on any target server and, during that time, you try to execute an Execution Task or Batch Job, the job returns error messages depending on the child jobs that fail under it (If the child jobs support Server Locking, an error message will appear)
  • NSH Script Type2, NSH script Type4: These jobs do not provide support for Server Locking.

Agent Installer Job Results View

The Activity node under every server shows jobs that have executed on that server during a particular period of time. When you expand the run node for that job, you can see the following nodes under it, based on the results of the job:

  • Failed
  • Warning
  • Success
  • Running

Under the Success node, the following additional nodes are displayed (depending on the operation type selected):

  • Installed
  • Upgraded .

These nodes show the logs for the servers that were successfully installed or upgraded.

Under the Running node, you can view all servers on which the Job is running.

Under Failed and Warning nodes, additional nodes are displayed for respective error messages.

Note

You must manually check the target servers that are displayed with the pending reboot warning. The RSCD agent maybe successfully upgraded on some servers requiring only a reboot. However, some servers may not have RSCD agents upgraded successfully on them.

To see complete error or warning messages, click the respective node for a target, as in the following figure:

SnipImage.JPG

Upgrading through CLI

The following set of BLCLI commands are available for creating an Agent Installer Job for performing an Install operation or an Upgrade operation and for setting various job options for an Upgrade operation:

  • AgentInstallerJob - createAgentInstallerJobWithOperationTypeAndTargetServer
  • AgentInstallerJob - createAgentInstallerJobWithOperationTypeAndTargetGroup
  • AgentInstallerJob - setAgentInstallerJobAclPushEnabledForUpgrade
  • AgentInstallerJob - setAgentInstallerJobIgnoreRunningJobs
  • AgentInstallerJob - setAgentInstallerJobSkipUpgrade

To set job options for an Install operation, use the other BLCLI commands in the AgentInstallerJob namespace. For more information, see BLCLI-reference.

 

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