Is it possible to Hotfix a gateway running R80.40 from a Smart Console running on R80.40 ?

[Tiger_QAs]

Exploring options to install a JHF on gateways from Smart console....

[PhoneBoy]

R80.40 allows you to install JHFs from SmartConsole.
I don't believe the gateways are required to be on R80.40 for this.

R81 allows you to perform version upgrades via SmartConsole.
Gateways definitely do NOT need to be on R81 for this.

[Boaz_Orshav]

The gateways can be of lower version (starting 77.30) but just notice they have to be connected to the internet since the Smart Console asks the gateway to download & install the Hotfix

In R81 you can both install Hotfix and upgrade version for gateways which are connected or not connected to the internet

[JozkoMrkvicka]

Is somewhere written what kind of pre-checks and post-checks are done during this upgrade via SmartConsole? Or maybe the best would be to have options to choose specific tasks before upgrade itself (like perform snapshot, perform failover, schedule upgrade, ...).

[PhoneBoy]

We're using CPUSE to do the upgrade, so it executes the same checks/processes.
Not sure about R80.40, but in R81, you can upgrade a two node cluster and it handles the failover.
Don't believe the upgrade can currently be scheduled.

[Oliver_Fink]

It would be really nice if there would be an option "Save Snapshot…" in addition to "Install Hotfix…". I nearly never implement any hotfix without doing a snapshot before. (Maybe this will rise the need to implement snapshot management (delete, export, import), too.)

[the_rock]

Thats valid point...I dont believe that was ever there though, even in previous versions.

[PhoneBoy]

Actually, CPUSE automatically does this with every installation.
This allows for a quick rollback in case something goes wrong. 

[abihsot__]

I believe CPUSE only creates snapshot during version upgrade, but not for hotfix installation.

[Tsahi_Etziony]

That is correct. CPUSE creates a snapshot for version upgrades, but not for hotfix installations. it is a tradeoff of time/risk/disk space - hotfixes can be easily uninstalled if needed.

For complex automations that allows much more than snapshots, I'd recommend using the Central Deployment Tool (CDT) . 

[abihsot__]

I would just use "right click" -> scripts -> one time script  with the command of adding a snapshot:

clish -c "add snapshot JHFx"

And then proceed with install hotfix. Of course if there were hundreds of gateways, probably CDT is the way to go...

[the_rock]

@Tsahi_Etziony ...might sound slightly off topic, but just curious...any idea why snapshots are always so large in size? I never seen any less than 5 GB of space...

[Tsahi_Etziony]

@the_rock I do have some idea 😉 (Snapshots, CPUSE, upgrades, Blink... are all developed in my team) 

Snapshots are simply packing the current root partition in a file - if you take a snapshot not during an upgrade, we copy the file aside. if you do it as part of an upgrade (no need to do anything - we do it for you), the upgrade is performed in a new root partition, so the old one is automatically and effortlessly packed into a snapshot. so the basic size of a snapshot is the size of the entire root partition (including disk space that was never used). we can later compress the snapshot by reducing its size to include only the used parts of the original partition, but still it would be several GBs. 

[the_rock]

K, makes sense ty! 🙂

[Vladimir]

@Tsahi_Etziony , can you tell us if the past issue with snapshot names and descriptions not allowing spaces or special characters is still present, or if it is addressed?

Thank you.

[PhoneBoy]

Far as I know, still an issue (and don't rename them, either!).

[Dov_Fraivert]

@Vladimir 

Regarding snapshot name, because it serves as the name of snapshot file, we don't want to allow more than a single word.

Regarding description, we intend to release a fix that allows to add spaces.  It is planned for Jumbos which be released in the coming months.
Regarding special characters, currently we only allow comma, dot and underscore. I do not know a reason / request to allow more.

[Vladimir]

@Dov_Fraivert , thank you for the update. This will be a welcome update to address this long standing issue. If I may make a suggestion, depending on your timelines for its release, could the description of the acceptable format be included in the "create snapshot" dialog box asap and adjusted, when new format is implemented?

[Dov_Fraivert]

@Vladimir In R81.10 We have added a temporary and partial solution that does not allow the entry of an invalid description (which includes spaces).

[Vladimir]

Thank you @Dov_Fraivert . Does it also validate the name format?

[Alex_Shpilman]

Hi @Tsahi_Etziony 

When will this be available on MDS? Or is it a question for the management development team?

Thanks.

[Tsahi_Etziony]

@Alex_Shpilman, what do you refer to in this question? The hotfix installation from SmartConsole? This is already available on MDS as well (installing from MDS onto the GWs)

[the_rock]

You got all valid responses!