Hello Dave,
I will attempt to answer your questions from this post and your previous. Stuart/all feel free to add in if I miss anything:
1. Version numbering and what it means
Version numbering of CSP follows mostly the same methodology for other software products. CSP started out as version 4.5 when it was integrated from an acquisition of PlatForm Logic’s Appfire product. The 5.x series brought forth many enhancements where Symantec HIDS/ITA was combined with the Appfire IPS portion of the product - 5.0. Future releases with the third number – i.e. 5.0.5 - indicates revisions to add limited functionality and/or fix issues with various aspects of the product. The second number – i.e. 5.1 or 5.2 indicates a release which includes major fixes, major enhancements, or entire new compliance to an operating system (agents).
The current 5.2.x series includes a new modulized IPS driver and adoption of many new OS’s for agent compatibility. Think of the third number as maintenance releases. Now there is also a forth number on individual components of the software such as the agents which indicate the actual build revision in Symantec’s content management/source code repository.
Those are usually 3 digits as they build/create many revisions to ensure full compatibility before they release to the public.
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2. Upgrade procedures from 5.2.0 to 5.2.3
First, it is always good to point out that CSP Manager and Console are all backward compatible with lower version agents. So it is important to upgrade the Manager, Console, and with the Manager upgrade - the backend SQL database. Remember CSP is basically a Tomcat front end with customized java applets working with the SQL backend over JDBC.
Procedure that I have used:
1. Ensure full backup of your front end manager system, and backend sql database has been performed, better safe than sorry. Also read all release notes available from your platinum donwload site for the CSP product version. It includes known issues for the various components, so you may identify a potential issue before you upgrade.
2. Keep copies of the following files
a. Server cert files (refer to CSP documentation for path info)
b. Agent cert files (refer to CSP documentation for path info)
c. Server.xml file (you can find the path to that in my previous post regarding pointing the front end manager to a new sql backend)
3. Depending on your enterprise environment, make sure you do NOT have any type of process monitoring system on the machine that will auto start the CSP management services once they are shut down. An example of this is BMC Patrol which (if configured a certain way) would auto start the service during the upgrade causing issues
4. Obtain the SA account password for your SCSPDB sql backend. You will need this in the upgrade process.
5. Run the CSP Management server upgrade/installation executable (server.exe). The installation and upgrade binary has been designed very well and will automatically detect that you are upgrading the Management service if present on the machine. Follow the menu options which are pretty self explanatory. If you need additional info on the various menu options refer the CSP installation guide.
6. As the upgrade is occurring there will be a point in the upgrade where the menu will show “running database scripts.” Depending on your architecture this may “stay” in this process for quite awhile, don’t panic. It is the portion of the upgrade where basically an OSQL script is run on your backend database ensuring all the various stored procedures, data locations, etc… are up to date.
7. Upgrade should complete successfully, now ensure to upgrade the Console, then to the larger deployment of upgrading your agents. Remember that you are not making much of a “jump” with 5.2.0 to 5.2.3 on upgrade, so things should go extremely smoothly.
8. Agent upgrades follow the same path, the agent.exe installation binary will automatically detect the previous version and upgrade automatically with the previous settings. Refer to the CSP installation guide on agent install/upgrades, as there are many switches in the binary start path that can be used to run it silently through even changing how the agent communicates.
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3. Documentation
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5.2.3 Documentation should be available within the iso download, all documentation for csp is in the /docs directory after your have unpacked it.