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Agent upgrade via mass deployment tooling - what is the recommended process

bmaudlin
By Level 9 Champion
Level 9 Champion

Hi Guys,

I am looking to upgrade our inventory agents from v13 to the latest version v15.2. As we typically deploy our agents using a deployment tool, an automatic upgrade for the agent via the beacon I believe is out of the question after reading the documentation. 

So for Windows devices, what is the recommended way to upgrade these agents? Are we able to install the new agent over the top of the old agent and the installer routine will take care of the necessary changes. Or is it a case of stopping the services/tasks, uninstalling the agent, removing the legacy directories and registry entry and then installing the new agent. On my test install I have carried out both of the above scenarios and the agent has reported in successfully, so I was looking to understand what the recommended process was. 

I have built a script to remove the old agent and install the new agent on Unix based devices, as there does not seem to be an upgrade path for these agents.

Ben

(5) Replies

Hi @bmaudlin 

recommend Uninstall previous, removing the legacy directories and registry entry and then installing the new agent. This is the best way to support it without a risk. It is working smoothly in our environment and not facing any issues from last few years.

Best,
Chirag 

Hi @chirag_sharma2,

That was my thought, this would be the route that is maybe required. Obviously I think if we are able to perform an upgrade to the existing agent however, rather than a full uninstall and reinstall, this would be a simpler process. 

However from your experience it does seem a full uninstall and reinstall is the way to go.

Ben

First of all, using a deployment tool to initially deploy the agent does not in itself preclude using the agent's built-in capability to upgrade itself. Generally using the following settings on the Discovery & Inventory > Inventory Settings page will give the easiest path to getting agents upgraded:

image.png

There are a few conditions to be aware of in using the agent self-upgrade capabilities, but in most situations these are not too onerous:

  • Be careful to ensure the deployment tool that was used for initial agent deployment is configured appropriately so that it won't try to change the agent version if it observes a different version from the initial deployment installed.
  • The agent cannot self-upgrade on Debian or Ubuntu.
  • The agent cannot self-upgrade on AIX if a custom installation directory has been used.

These points are discussed some more on the following online help page: Inventory Agent Automatic Deployment Cautions

With that said, there are certainly valid situations where you would want to continue to use a deployment tool to perform upgrades. For example: one of the above conditions may apply, or you want the added control and reporting that a dedicated deployment tool will provide.

The approach taken by the agent when it upgrades itself is to do the upgrade over the top of the current installation, without first uninstalling the currently installed components. You may prefer to do an uninstall first because you consider it to be conceptually cleaner or simpler, but I can't think of any firm requirement to do it.

(Did my reply solve the question? Click "ACCEPT AS SOLUTION" to help others find answers faster. Liked something? Click "KUDO". Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera.)

@bmaudlin - If you download the FlexNet Windows Agent install package, you will see that there is an Upgrade folder.  Within this folder is an MSI package that can be distributed with a 3rd-party tool to perform an in-place upgrade of the FlexNet Agent to the current version.

Hello @kclausen,

I did notice the upgrade folder, but it only contains two executables ndlaunch.exe and relaunch.exe so it wasn't super clear if these were solely used if you performed the upgrade via a policy update on a beacon.

Ben