Upgrading a NetScaler HA pair

Following on from my initial post, in this post, ill look at how myself and the other NetScaler guy I work onsite with came up with a devious plan to upgrade our  internal NetScaler's, preferably one that didn't involve a shit load of heartache, downtime or working for 30 hours over a weekend!

First things first, back up your current configs on the NetScaler's in question, my guide to this is here:

Backup the Netscaler!

N.b* - if you are upgrading due to a memory leak issue, you are best to reboot both NetScaler’s (one at a time), to make sure all changes are committed to the current configurations.

Once completed the NetScaler’s should be upgraded as follows:

To avoid issues with an updated NetScaler participating in HA from automatically taking over the primary role, and subsequently updating the (now) secondary Node do the following first:

• Test as many different types of connection as possible, to confirm good working order before you begin.

• On the secondary node go to system\high availability and open the secondary node, select stay secondary in the HA Status, also De-select secondary node will fetch the config from the primary & Primary node will propagate configuration to the secondary.

• Once this is done save the config, and then update the secondary NetScaler.
• Once complete, cold boot the secondary NetScaler.
• When you are happy the secondary node has come back to life and everything look as it should, force a failover to make the secondary NetScaler primary.
• Make sure you set the now secondary NetScaler with the same above options……..
• Test all the same connections that were checked as above, confirming these are still working soundly.
• Now upgrade the secondary node of the NetScaler, once complete, force the failover, change HA settings back to enabled in HA, and both other check boxes selected.
• If this has been done correctly, the NetScaler’s are upgraded!

hopefully an easy, straightforward guide to updating your NetScaler's and keeping the powers that be off your case!

Haines

NetScaler Configuration backup...... it really is simple.

Although now being in the IT industry for over a decade, and reading at least a thousand blogs, this is actually my first attempt at one, I hope at least a few of you reading find it useful, it makes it worthwhile me posting it!

Backing up a NetScaler HA pair is really a pre-requisite prior to any type of Upgrade of Firmware, or major changes to infrastructure on the NetScaler (no I’m not talking about enabling a feature)..

After looking around a little, although this is posted in a few other places, its either drawn out, like you’re having to do some sort of brain surgery, or its not actually telling you specifically how to back it up?

that's part of the reason for me writing this, for some reason (some) Tech heads believe that unless something is really hard to understand/interpret, it means they're stupid? i find the best way of understanding something is to break it down as easily as you can possibly make it.... 

with the right tools, it really only takes about five minutes, here goes!:

1. Log onto the NetScaler with administrative access (surprising I know...), through a telnet/ssh client, PuTTy's a firm favourite here!.
2. Type Shell to get to the right 'piece' of the NetScaler, don't take the piss, a lot of NS admins only use the CLI...
3. Backup the NSConfig folder, using the following command: cvfz/var/tmp/**yourfilenamehere**.tgz/flash/nsconfig
4. I like to use a graphical ftp interface (why make things more difficult??) like WinScp, connect to said NetScaler and copy off the temporary Directory....

That's as difficult as it gets really, obviously this needs to be repeated if you've got HA pairs of NetScaler’s running, which you should have if you value your job?

This is correct, as of any and all versions of NetScaler 9.3... there will be some 10 bits coming at some point, just not yet! :)

Haines