Upgrading a Linux Installation

This topic describes how to upgrade a single XperienCentral server in a production environment as well as in a clustered environment. 

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Upgrading XperienCentral on a Single Server

Upgrading the website to a new version of XperienCentral is a similar process to installing a new deploy. This topic describes the steps required to upgrade your website to a new version of XperienCentral.

Create a New Deploy and Optionally Request a New configuration.xml

First, a new deploy needs to be created. This is typically done by the software developer. See Create the Deploy and What to Deliver to the System Administrator for information on creating a deploy and what items to deliver to the system administrator. If necessary, you can request a new configuration.xml file but in most cases this is not necessary. This step is only necessary if you want to add new functional components that you don't already use. If you do receive a configuration.xml file from GX Software, deliver it to the system administrator. Contact GX Software to receive a new configuration.xml file.

Process the Deploy for a New configuration.xml

For most upgrades, you will not receive a new configuration.xml file. If you do receive a new configuration.xml file from GX Software, the system administrator must perform the following tasks:

1. Make a backup copy of <webmanager-root>\configuration\configuration.xml.
2. Copy the new configuration.xml over the old one in <webmanager-root>\configuration\.

Check Configuration Files

In most XperienCentral deployments, a number of the properties in the various configuration files are customized for each specific environment. During an upgrade, these files should not be overwritten. Instead, you should perform a diff to determine what the differences are between the files delivered by GX Software and those already present in your customized environment. In some releases, new properties are introduced which you must pick up in your configuration file(s). If no new properties have been introduced in a configuration file between releases, you can use the current version of the file in the upgraded version as is.

The files to check for every release are listed below. Other XperienCentral files can also be modified in a release and those changes are always specifically described in the Upgrade Notes.

• logging.properties
• web.xml
• springmvc-servlet.xml
• settings.xml
• deploy.xml

• startup_config.xml (if stored outside of the WAR file)

• config.xml (if stored outside of the WAR file)

See also How to Create and Process a Deploy.

Process the Deploy

After receiving the files from the developer, the system administrator performs the following tasks to process the deploy and the configuration.xml (if applicable):

1. If necessary, make a backup copy of /vol/www.mywebsite/configuration.xml.
2. If necessary, replace the old copy of configuration.xml with the new version.
3. Perform the steps as described in Process the Deploy (How to Create and Process a Deploy).

License Additions

Apart from the files mentioned in What to Deliver to the System Administrator, you sometimes also have to deliver a new configuration.xml file depending on the circumstances surrounding your upgrade. Contact GX Software to receive a new configuration.xml file.

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Upgrading XperienCentral in a Clustered Environment

Upgrading XperienCentral in a clustered production environment is very similar to upgrading a standalone version of XperienCentral except that there are multiple instances of XperienCentral that must be upgraded (read/write node(s) and one or more read-only nodes) and these must be upgraded in a specific order. To upgrade a clustered XperienCentral deployment, follow these steps:

1. Stop XperienCentral on all read-only nodes.
2. Stop XperienCentral on the read/write node(s).

3. Upgrade XperienCentral first on one of the read/write node(s) and after successfully starting XperienCentral on that single node, upgrade the remaining read/write and read-only nodes by following the steps in Upgrading XperienCentral on a Single Server.

4. See Upgrade Notes per Version for further tasks (if any) that you need to perform for the newly installed version of XperienCentral.

Environments Using the File Distribution Service

1. Start XperienCentral on a read/write noder with the setting -Dwebmanager-clustering.filestore=false.
   
   XperienCentral is completely started when the following messages appears in the Tomcat log:
   
   [Date] [Time] nl.gx.webmanager.startup.impl.Startup start
INFO: XperienCentral started successfully in x ms
   
   
2. When you have determined that the upgrade was successful, stop the read/write node.
3. On the read/write node that you started and confirmed that the upgrade was successful in the steps above, change the setting clustering.filestore to true (-Dwebmanager.clustering.filestore=true).
4. Start XperienCentral on that read/write node.

After the read/write node is started, the file store will be initialized by the File Distribution Service (files from the upload and upload_mm directories). Depending on the number files and the size of the files, this process could take some time. During this process, the server is available for use but could run slower due to the impact from the file synchronization process. Editors should be able to continue working. The following message appears in the log when the File Distribution Service has completed its task:

INFO: Finished scanning the web roots for files for the File Distribution Service

1. Start XperienCentral on the second read/write node if you are running a dual environment.
2. In a dual read/write node environment, wait until the second read/write node has started successfully before starting XperienCentral on all read-only nodes. This could also take some time because the second read/write node needs to synchronize files from the central file store to the local disk. Until the file synchronization process is complete, the second read/write node will not be available for use.
3. In a single read/write node environment, start XperienCentral on all read-only nodes.

Environments that Do Not Use the File Distribution Service

1. Start XperienCentral on the read/write node. XperienCentral is completely started when the following messages appears in the Tomcat log:
   
   26-jan-2010 13:05:35 nl.gx.webmanager.startup.impl.Startup start
INFO: XperienCentral started successfully in x ms
   
   
2. Confirm that the upgrade was successful.
3. Start XperienCentral one by one on all other read/write and read-only nodes.

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