Messaging Gateway

Hello all,

I hope you all are doing good. I need to upgrade SMG which is running version 10.2.x to 10.5 in ESX.

Please tell me what is the step by step process of doing it becuase i need to do it tommarow. It's urgent.

regards,

this is the path of upgrade.

10.0.2 -> 10.0.3 -> 10.5.1

please any 1 help.

I have three scaners and one control center in the envoirement. Please advice how can i do it step by step.

regards,

The following is from the 10.5.1 release notes:

Best practices for all upgrades

Perform a backup.

Symantec strongly recommends that you take a full system backup before you run the

software update and store it off-box.

Do not restart.

The software update process may take several hours to complete. If you restart before

the process is complete, data corruption is likely to occur. If data corruption occurs, the

appliance must be reinstalled with a factory image.

Delete log messages.

If your site policies let you, delete all Scanner and DDS log messages.

Stop mail flow to Scanners and flush queues before you update.

To reduce Scanner update time and complexity, you should stop mail flow to Scanners

and drain all queues.

To halt incoming messages, click Administration > Hosts > Configuration, and edit

a Scanner. On the Services tab, click Do not accept incoming messages and click

Save. Allow some time for messages to drain from your queues. To check the queues,

click Status > SMTP > Message Queues. Flush the messages that are left in the

queues.

Update Control Center first.

Symantec strongly recommends that you upgrade your Control Center before you

upgrade your Scanners. If you do not upgrade the Control Center first, Symantec

recommends that you use the command line interface to upgrade remote Scanners. It

is crucial that the time frame in which you update your Scanners to 10.0.3 is as short

as practicable. This best practice is critical because if the Control Center and Scanner

versions differ, the Control Center is unable to make configuration changes to the

Scanner. Configurations in which the Control Center and Scanners run different versions

for an extended period are unsupported.

Perform software update at off-peak hours.

When you update the Control Center, the Control Center appliance is offline and

unusable. Scanners cannot deliver messages to quarantine on the Control Center

during the software update, so messages build up in a queue. Running software update

on a Control Center appliance can take quite some time. Plan to update the Control

Center appliance during off-peak hours.

When you migrate a Scanner, it goes offline. Scanner resources are unavailable during

the migration process. Software update of a Scanner takes less time than the software

update of the Control Center.

I agree with these steps to a point.

My thoughts:

• I have found that upgrading the scanners first to be preferred.  The logic being, once you upgrade the Control Center, you will no longer have control of the scanners.  When this occours, the scanners will need to be upgraded from the CLI.  
• Take advantage of downloading the update before you install the update.  I have always done this during regular hours as it doe not effect mail flow.  Once the change control time starts, you can begin the proccess without the added time to download the update.
• I prefer using the CLI to perfrom upgrade.  I've been doing it since 6.x.  

Hope this helps.

what is the CLI method of doing it ?

From a Command prompt logged in as admin on each of the appliances, you can use the "update" command to perform the entire proccess.  This can be accessed using an SSH session or from a vCenter Console.

A typical update will go something like

smtp> update list   <--- this verifies new version avaialble

smtp> update download   <--- this downloads the new version without installing it

When you are ready to perform the actial update

smtp> update install     <-----  this will start the upgrade proccess,
                                           if you have not already downloaded the update,
                                           this will start the download procces and continue with update.

Here is more information from Appendiix A from the smg admin guide.

CLI Command:

update – update the appliance software

SYNOPSIS

update check | list

update [--version number] ( download | install | notes )

update --help

DESCRIPTION

You can perform the following tasks with the update command:

• Check for new software updates
• Download software updates
• Install software updates
• List the available software updates for download or installation

Before you update the software, ensure that your appliance does not perform any tasks that if disrupted could cause problems after you reset the system.

OPTIONS

--help, -h

Display this message.

--version, -v

Specify a software update version number for the download, install, or notes arguments. Use update list to determine what versions are available for the --version option.

ARGUMENTS

check

Perform a test update. The test update demonstrates what happens if you choose to perform a software update. Running update check does not update your appliance software.

download

Download but do not install a software update. After you download a software update, you can install it by typing update install. If you do not specify a version, the latest software update is downloaded.

If your Internet connection to the Symantec software update servers is not reliable, try downloading as a separate step from installing.

install

Download and install a software update. If you do not specify a version, the latest software update is installed on your appliance.

list

Display the available software updates.

notes

Display the software update notes. If you do not specify a version, the latest software update notes are displayed.

EXAMPLES

Download but do not install a software update. After you download a software update, you can install it by typing update install.

update download

Thanks for your help , I really appreciate it.

As you have told me that upgrading the scanners first should be preffered. Have u experienced this that scanners should be upgraded first and then the Scanner ?

Secondly can I get back to you if i ever need any help in any scenrio regarding SMG ?

regards,

if doing it in GUI i have to go into Administration > version > download update > install update . I have to do this step for the Control Center , Scanner 1, Scanner 2 and Scanner 3 seperatly ?

So what i have understood from all this discussion is in order to upgrade first i should update my scanners one by one and once they are updated i then should upgrade my control center ?

The upgrade path should be like this current version is 10.0.2 update it first to 10.0.3 and once updated to 10.0.3 then update it to 10.5 ?

I have to seperatly upgrade the scanners and contorl center ?

Regards,

I suggest you also read "Symantec™ Messaging Gateway 10.5.1 Software Update Notes"

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=DOC6845

Based on this document and keeping in mind all the steps in the upgrade proccess (backup and stopping MTA flow to empty out Queues...)  The order to upgrade if using the GUI,  

1. Upgrade BCC to 10.0.3-3

If after upgrading the BCC, it can no longer communicate with Scanner(s) then you may need to upgrade scanners uing CLI.  Continue with:

1. Upgrade Scanner 1 to 10.0.3-3
2. Upgrade Scanner 2 to 10.0.3-3
3. Upgrade Scanner 3 to 10.0.3-3

Verify they are all working.  Then proceed to...

Verify they are all working.

The BCC is the key applaince to verify the backup completed successfully  and that the upgrade steps are followed properly.  Scanners on the otherhand, proviing queues were cleared can usually be rebuild and added to BCC with little headache.

Hello Mark,

I hope you are doing good. I have done the upgrade in the test envoirement fine though it was scanner and control center on a single virtual appliance .

Now I have to do it in the production. Where the order is same as I have told you before . 3 scanners and a control center. both the  Scanners and Control Center  are installed on  dedicated virtual appliances. Do I have to take the full backup for three of them seperately via logging into their web consoles and then proceeding with their individual upgrades ?

Last minute thoughts before you proceed:

Verify you can log in as admin via CLI (SSH or vShield Console) and your password is accepted.  It's much easier to resolve this before you upgrade then when you are in middle of upgrade.

Provided you have a configuration with a single Brightmail Control Center (BCC) with the three scanners reporting to it, (and not BCC/Scanner combos like you used in your runthrough).  You will only need to access the GUI on the BCC to perform all the steps. (Backup BCC, clear scanner logs, stop inbound MTA traffic and upgrade)

Since this is a Virtual environment, leverage Snapshots, this will save you a world of time and headaches should the upgrade proccess go awry.

So long your SMG environment is healthy and you follow steps in "Symantec™ Messaging Gateway 10.5.1 Software Update Notes" you should be in good shape.