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Reporting / Monitoring Booster Upgrade Process

What

The Booster upgrade feature gives FileWave administrators a centralized way to schedule and monitor Booster upgrades from within FileWave.

When/Why

Having to ssh or remote control to each Booster to download and run the installer takes too much time. Starting with FileWave 14.4, the "Boosters" and "Booster Details" tabs provide upgrade actions for each Booster that has an applicable upgrade available. Starting with FileWave 16.3.0, compatible outdated Boosters can also be automatically scheduled for upgrade after a FileWave Server upgrade. By default, that automatic Booster upgrade is scheduled one week later, the delay is configurable in Preferences, and administrators can unschedule it if needed. That delay value is evaluated when the FileWave Server upgrade schedules Booster upgrades. If the delay is set to 0 days before the FileWave Server upgrade, compatible Boosters try to upgrade right away after that Server upgrade. Changing the delay afterward does not retroactively reschedule Boosters that were already queued. It affects the next FileWave Server upgrade scheduling event instead, such as 16.3.1 or later. Some of the criteria to determine if there is an applicable upgrade are:

  • Booster has to be at least 14.4
  • The operating system version has to be supported by the target version
  • The booster has to be running in order to trigger an upgrade
  • The version number of the target version has to be higher than the currently installed version (i.e you cannot use this feature to reinstall/downgrade to a specific version)

This article discusses the reporting and monitoring functions around both manually scheduled Booster upgrades and the automatic post-Server-upgrade scheduling introduced in FileWave 16.3.0.

How

In the "Booster Details" tab, there are three fields that indicate the status of the Booster upgrade queue. These fields apply whether the upgrade was scheduled manually or automatically after a Server upgrade:

Booster Status Fields 2.png

Upgrade Status - This field shows the current progress of the booster with one of the below statuses:

  • No upgrade in progress: Currently, no upgrade is being installed. This status is also shown when the last upgrade was successful.
  • Downloading: Indicates that the booster is currently downloading a new booster upgrade from the server; a necessary step before the upgrade can be installed.
  • Installing: The booster is currently installing an update. This should either lead to the "No upgrade in progress" or "Failed" state. The default timeout is one hour.
  • Failed: Indicating the upgrade was unable to complete.

Available Upgrade Version - Reports which upgrade version is available to this particular booster, given its operating system.

Scheduled for Upgrade - This flag indicates whether the booster is in the current upgrade queue.

  • 'true': Booster is either processing an upgrade or waiting for a preceding Booster to finalize an upgrade, including failures.
  • 'false': No upgrade is scheduled

Only on each upgrade success will subsequent Boosters continue to automatically upgrade, if scheduled, to the version indicated by the 'Available Upgrade Version'. If the auto-upgrade delay is set to 0 days, before the FileWave Server upgrade, compatible Boosters make that first automatic attempt immediately after the FileWavethat Server upgrade. Changing the delay after the Server upgrade does not retroactively reschedule Boosters that are already queued. Each Booster gets one automatic attempt in that run. Booster upgrade failures prevent further automated, scheduled upgrades until addressed or overridden by bypassing the failed Booster from the 'Unschedule Booster' context menu item.

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Digging Deeper

When an upgrade is triggered through FileWave Central, the server sends a notification to the Booster with a URL parameter pointing to the upgrade package (deb for Linux, pkg for Mac, MSI for Windows) that shall be downloaded and installed. Currently, this URL will point to the FileWave CDN (https://fwdl.filewave.com/) for official releases. Both "Boosters" and "Booster Details" view offer a filter to only show Boosters that can be upgraded.

The location for auto upgrade logs is;

  •  Linux and MacOS: /var/log/fwbooster_upgrade.log 
  • Windows: C:\ProgramData\FileWave\FWBooster\Data Folder\upgradeBooster.log
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