Upgrade von Avantra Agents

You have the option to upgrade Avantra Agents manually or automatically (recommended).

Upgrading to Java 17

With the release of Avantra Agent version 23.3.x and above, the Java runtime support has changed as follows:

Supported JRE versions for Avantra agents
Agent Version	JRE 8	JRE 17
23.2.x und darunter	JA	NEIN
23.3.x bis 23.9.x	JA	JA
24.x und höher	NEIN	JA

Considerations for a JRE 17 upgrade

The table above shows that, if you are upgrading an existing landscape to use Java 17, you MUST bring all agents to a version of the Avantra agent in the 23.3.x codeline first in order to swap out the Java runtime for JRE 17. We highligh recommend using the built-in automatic agent and JRE upgrade system as described later on this page to do both the agent upgrade and the JRE upgrade. This will also bring the JRE version under the control of Avantra (what we call an internal Java runtime). For the avoidance of doubt, the internal java runtime lives within the Agent installation folder and is only used by Avantra. An external java runtime would be controlled and provided by another source and usually is configured on the $PATH usually via a package manager.

Upgrade-Pfad zu Java 17 für Avantra Agents

Kunden, die ihre bestehenden Installationen von einer früheren Version aktualisieren, wird empfohlen, dieses Verfahren zu befolgen:

Das allgemeine Verfahren ist in der folgenden Abbildung dargestellt:

Bringen Sie Ihren Avantra Server auf mindestens Version 23.3.x
[WICHTIG] Bringen Sie alle Agenten mithilfe der integrierten Funktion Agent Updates im Menü Administration auf eine Mindestversion von 23.3.x. Dies ist die einzige Agentenversion, die sowohl Java Runtime 8 als auch 17 unterstützt.
Laden Sie eine Java 17-Laufzeitumgebung in Avantra Server unter Administration - Agent Updates im neuen Reiter Java Packages hoch. Beachten Sie, dass dieser Reiter nicht angezeigt wird, wenn Ihr Avantra Server nicht auf 23.3.x oder höher ist.
Beginnen Sie mit der Aktualisierung EINES (1) Agenten eines nicht kritischen Systems, um die neue Java 17-Laufzeitumgebung zu verwenden, indem Sie auf die Registerkarte Status gehen und Select systems for a Java update auswählen, Ihr System auswählen und die neue JRE auswählen, die Sie gerade hochgeladen haben.
- Sobald das Java-Update erfolgreich abgeschlossen wurde und der Agent ordnungsgemäß funktioniert (warten Sie 15 Minuten, bis alle Zyklen abgeschlossen sind, oder erzwingen Sie einen vollständigen Prüfzyklus). Stellen Sie sicher, dass Avantra innerhalb von 15 Minuten nach dem Update anzeigt, dass der Server unter Java 17 läuft.
Sobald Sie ein Upgrade für einen Agenten erfolgreich durchgeführt haben, können Sie weitere Upgrades durchführen. Wir empfehlen, diese in aufsteigenden Gruppen von Agenten durchzuführen, falls Probleme auftreten sollten. Wenn Sie beispielsweise 100 Agenten aktualisieren müssen, gehen Sie wie folgt vor:
- 1 Agent zur Überprüfung des Prozesses
- 4 Agenten zur Überprüfung des Prozesses
- 15 Agenten
- 30 Agenten
- 50 Agenten

Upgrading Agents Automatically

Avantra Agents are able to perform Agent Self Updates. These updates can be initiated centrally from the Avantra UI, so the installation of patches and new versions becomes easy in all Avantra environments. You need the Trigger Agent Updates Permission in order to perform automatic updates.

You can also trigger the update of the Java runtime for agents from within the same area of Avantra.

Procedure: Automated upgrade of Avantra Agents (Linux & Windows)

The Agent Self Updates work as follows:

There is just one(!) upgrade package for the Avantra Agent which is valid for all supported operating systems. This is the file called agent-24.0.n.bin available for download from the Avantra Customer Hub. Yes the .bin file works for both Linux and windows.
You can upload the packages using Avantra WebUI and the Avantra Agents retrieve the packages through the Avantra Server and avantra-gateway infrastructure.
Avantra WebUI provides an interface that allows you to select the Avantra Agents to be upgraded. You can either choose items from the Server list or define an ad-hoc Selectors.

Select Administration Agent Updates from the top-level menu. Select the Packages tab. Choose Upload from the toolbar.

Choose the packages from your computer and start the upload.
Select Administration Agent Updates from the top-level menu. Select Select Systems for… Agent Update from the toolbar.
Fill in appropriate values for the Selectors and push OK.
Choose the appropriate version from the drop-down list and set the flags on the Servers you want to update.
Confirm your selection by pushing the Start Agent Update button.
The Status tab contains the latest status information about the recently scheduled agent updates. You may want to choose the value Running and Errors from the drop-down list in the toolbar to watch the update progress.
Once the download has finished successfully, the package is extracted, the Avantra Agent is stopped, old files are replaced, and the newly installed Avantra Agent is started.

In order to avoid too many Avantra Agents trying to download the packages at the same time, the update requests are queued. Only update-simultaneous-downloads update requests are triggered at the same time and there is a delay of schedule-wait-time before the next bunch of update requests is triggered, etc. These two parameters can be configured as described in Change Properties for the WebUI.

While the whole process usually works very smoothly, there are a few items to observe:

Small is beautiful: If you plan to upgrade your Avantra Agents, start with one or two Physical Servers first and test the upgrade procedure as well as the new Avantra Agent. If you feel comfortable with the new version, continue with the rest of your Avantra Agents. By default, Avantra Agents running already on the target release are not upgraded, unless you enforce this.
Downgrade: If the upgrade process went well, but the new Avantra Agent does not work as expected, you can also use this feature to downgrade Avantra Agents to the last known good version. With the exception of where the agent you are downgrading to does not support the Java runtime in place for the agent.
Version Information: On Microsoft Windows systems the version information shown in the Programs and Features dialog of the control panel will not be updated. This should not cause concern.

See Troubleshooting Agent Updates in case of any issues.

Manual upgrade of Agents (Linux)

Procedure: Manual upgrade of Avantra Agents on Linux

Log into the server and stop Avantra agent services. You can stop your Avantra services either using systemd or via the Avantra rc file (systemctl is recommended)
```
$ sudo systemctl stop avantra-agent
```
OR
```
$ /opt/avantra/agent/rc.agent stop
```
Switch user to the service user running your Avantra agent and change into the avantra directory. The example below assumes the service user is called avantra and Avantra is installed to the directory /opt/avantra.
```
$ sudo su avantra
avantra$ cd /opt/avantra/
```

Download the installer file agent-[version].bin and make it executable

avantra$ curl -o agent-24.0.n.bin 'https://........link...from...customer...hub....'
avantra$ chmod +x agent-24.0.n.bin

Perform the upgrade of your Avantra agent

Note that we use the --start=no flag in this case so we can manually restart our Avantra agent after the upgrade using systemctl. If you are using the rc files to start and stop your services, you do not need the --start=no flag.
```
avantra$ ./agent-{product-release-n}.bin -- --start=no
```
Restart your Avantra agent (either using systemctl or the rc.agent file)

For the systemctl option, first we exit back to a sudo-capable user.
```
avantra$ exit
$ sudo systemctl start avantra-agent
```
OR for the rc.agent method:
```
avantra$ /opt/avantra/agent/rc.agent start
```

Manual upgrade of Agents (Windows)

Simply install the new version of Avantra Agent as described in Installing the Agent on Microsoft Windows.