Upgrading Charon-SSP AWS
- W.Erber
Contents
Software Package Upgrade
If required, Stromasys or your VAR will provide you with installation packages to update your Charon-SSP AWS instance.
In this case, perform the following steps:
- Use SFTP to copy the RPM packages to your Charon AWS instance (see Data Transfer Options).
- Connect to the host system using Charon Manager (see Accessing the Charon-SSP AWS Instance)
- Shutdown the guest systems running on the host and stop the emulator.
- Use SSH to connect to your Charon AWS instance (see Accessing the Charon-SSP AWS Instance).
- Install the new RPM packages as described below.
- Install the new Charon-SSP Manager package on your local Linux system as described below.
- Connect to the host system using Charon Manager.
- Start the emulator and boot the guest systems.
Charon-SSP AWS Installation Packages
The Charon-SSP packages are provided as RPM packages and (only Charon Manager) as Debian packages. You can download the required package(s) from Stromasys or receive them on a read-only medium, such as a CD-ROM. If you do not have the software package(s), please contact either Stromasys or your Value-Added Reseller (VAR) for further help.
The following table shows installation package names. The update of these packages is shown in the following sections.
| Product part | Package names |
|---|---|
| Charon-SSP emulator software for the different SPARC architectures. 4U+ and 4V+ contain both the 4U and 4U+ and 4V and 4V+ versions respectively. | charon-ssp-4v+-<version>.aws-1.x86_64.rpm charon-ssp-4m-<version>.aws-1.x86_64.rpm charon-ssp-4u+-<version>.aws-1.x86_64.rpm |
| Charon-SSP Agent (required for the Charon Manager connection) | charon-agent-ssp-<version>.x86_64.rpm |
Charon-SSP Manager
| charon-manager-ssp-<version>.rpm charon-manager-ssp-<version>.deb |
This package must be installed on the local Linux system!Upgrading Charon Packages on the Charon-SSP AWS Instance
After copying the packages to the Charon-SSP AWS instance, install the packages as described below. For details, please refer to the relevant man-pages on Linux.
Step | Details |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cleanly shut down any running Solaris guest system and stop the emulator. |
| 2 | Log in to the Charon-SSP AWS via SSH to the sshuser and become the root user ( |
| 3 | Go to the directory where the packages have been stored:
|
| 4 | Run upgrade command: |
For systems with RPM package management (Red Hat, CentOS): |
Upgrading Charon Manager on the Management Linux System
There are two ways to upgrade the Charon Manager on the management Linux system.
Standard Linux Package Update
Step | Details |
|---|---|
| 1 | Log in as the root user. |
| 2 | Go to the directory where the packages have been stored:
|
| 3 | Run upgrade command: |
For systems with RPM package management (Red Hat, CentOS): | |
For systems with Debian package management (Debian, Ubuntu): |
Automatic Update upon First Connection to Updated Charon Host System
New feature in Charon-SSP 4.0.x and its pre-release versions.
If you connect to a Charon host system from a management system that uses an older version of the Charon Manager than the one used on the host system, you will be offered an automatic update to the version of the Charon host system. If the target host system is a newly installed Charon system, you will be prompted to set the management password before you get to the upgrade window (see Connecting with the Charon-SSP Manager for more information).
The following image shows a sample of the upgrade offer:
Confirm the upgrade by clicking on Yes. This will initiate the download and installation of the new version. If you work as a non-privileged user, you will be prompted for your password. To decline the automatic update, click on Cancel.
This mechanism also works for downgrades (i.e., if the Charon Manager version is newer than the version of the Charon host system it connects to, it can be automatically downgraded to the version of the target system).
Some future major changes in the Charon Manager and/or Agent may prevent the automatic upgrade. In such cases, follow the manual package installation steps.
Creating a New Instance with New Charon-SSP AWS AMI Version
One option to upgrade Charon-SSP AWS to a newer version is the creation of a new instance based on a new version of the Charon-SSP AWS AMI.
This may be applicable if
- all important Charon instance files (e.g., vdisks and ISO images) are on a separate EBS storage volume that can easily be moved to a new instance,
- the overall configuration of the Charon-SSP host system is not very complex, i.e., can be recreated without much time and effort,
- a major host operating system upgrade is required.
Steps (only meant for illustration - the details could vary depending on the customer environment):
- Create an instance with the new Charon-SSP version in the same subnet as the old instance (same security group and key pair as old instance).
- Shut down guest systems and stop running emulator instances on the old host system.
- Backup emulated SPARC disks and configuration data on the old instance to the separate EBS volume.
- If applicable, backup important system configuration files to the separate EBS volume.
- Stop the old instance.
- Copy the Charon Manager kit from the new instance and install it on your local Linux system, or connect to the new instance via Charon Manager to initiate the automatic Charon Manager update.
- Move the EBS volume(s) and (if applicable) network interfaces with elastic IP addresses to the new instance.
- Import the virtual SPARC configurations on the new system.
- Adapt the host system configuration as needed.
- Start the guest systems.
- If everything works, terminate the old instance.
Please refer to the AWS documentation for AWS specific details.
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