Log Insight: Supported Upgrade Paths + Procedures

In the last 18 months, Log Insight has released 4 GA versions, 8 TP versions (including beta), and 1 patch version (applicable to 1.5 and 2.0). Also during this time, the upgrade procedure has evolved starting with a CLI RPM upgrade in 1.0, switching to a GUI RPM upgrade in 1.5 TP2, and finally switching to a GUI PAK upgrade for 1.5 GA. In Log Insight 2.0, clustering was introduced and this increased the upgrade procedure by adding the requirement to upgrade workers. Finally, there are upgrade dependencies that must be followed. In order to make upgrades easier to understand, I would like to break it down into supported upgrade paths and supported upgrade procedures.

Documentation Today

Log Insight documents the supported upgrade paths and upgrade procedures here. One can argue that the presentation of this information is hard to decipher. I will take a different approach below to try and make it easier to consume.

Supported Upgrade Paths

The supported upgrade paths can be broken down into three different categories and requirements:

1. Upgrades between GA releases need to be sequential. This means if you are currently running Log Insight 1.5 and you wish to upgrade to Log Insight 2.5 then you must first upgrade to Log Insight 2.0 and then upgrade to Log Insight 2.5. This means the supported upgrade path to date is:
   

   1.0 GA -> 1.5 GA -> 2.0 GA -> 2.5 GA

2. Upgrades to a Log Insight GA patch release must happen from the same GA release. If you are running Log Insight 1.5 and you wish to upgrade to Log Insight 2.0 U1 then you must first upgrade to Log Insight 2.0 and then upgrade to Log Insight 2.0 U1. This means the supported upgrade path to date is:
   

   1.0 GA -> 1.5 GA [-> 1.5 GA U1] -> 2.0 GA (version 2.0.3) [-> 2.0 GA U1 (version 2.0.5)] -> 2.5 GA

3. Upgrades to/from TPs (including beta and RCs) do not have the sequential requirement, but must be between GA releases. This means if you are running Log Insight 2.0 then you can upgrade directly to Log Insight 2.5 TP2 (skipping 2.5 TP1). In addition, you can upgrade from Log Insight 2.5 TP2 directly to Log Insight 2.5 GA (skipping 2.5 TP3 and 2.5 beta). This means a supported upgrade path is:
   

   1.0 GA -> 1.5 GA -> 2.0 Beta -> 2.0 GA (version 2.0.3) -> 2.0 GA U1 (version 2.0.5) -> 2.5 TP2 -> 2.5 GA

It is important to note that Log Insight does not enforce the upgrade path today. This means you could attempt to upgrade from Log Insight 1.5 directly to Log Insight 2.5. In many cases the operation will fail because the PAK file does not contain all the components necessary to ensure a successful upgrade, but in some case the upgrades may proceed and your Log Insight instance may become unusable. Since Log Insight 1.5 introduced GUI upgrades, the GUI has always warned the user to perform a snapshot of their Log Insight instance before upgrading. This step is key and can be the saving grace should you accidentally not follow the supported upgrade path.
One final note is that GUI upgrades are the only supported type of upgrade starting with Log Insight 1.5. While it is possible to upgrade from the CLI, this option is not supported and as such not covered in this post.

Supported Upgrade Procedures

Given this is about supported upgrade procedures, I will skip temporary upgrade procedures available in certain TPs as TPs are not supported today.

1. CLI RPM upgrade (Log Insight 1.0 GA to Log Insight 1.5 GA ONLY)
2. GUI PAK upgrade (Log Insight 2.0 GA and newer)
3. GUI cluster upgrade (Log Insight 2.5 GA and newer)
   

   IMPORTANT: New ports are REQUIRED for LI node communicate and workers must be able to communicate with each other.

   1. GUI PAK upgrade (Log Insight master node)
      

      IMPORTANT: The master node MUST be upgraded first.

   2. GUI worker upgrade (Log Insight worker nodes)
      

      IMPORTANT: Workers MUST be updated one at a time. Also, if you have not read the documentation then you may not know that you can upgrade an entire cluster from the master node UI.

Summary

Upgrading Log Insight is very straightforward, but it is important to understand the supported upgrade paths and procedures. Future versions of Log Insight will probably make this upgrade procedure even easier and include additional checks to ensure a successful upgrade and possibly even successful downgrade.

© 2014, Steve Flanders. All rights reserved.