Update NetScaler firmware

How to update our NetScaler HA pair to a new firmware.

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Previously in this lab, we installed two NetScaler appliances and configured High Availability. Once in a while, you will have to update your appliances with a new NetScaler OS firmware.

In this post, we will review the steps to complete this task. The following procedure details the steps to upgrade NetScaler appliances running the version 11.0 Build 55.20 to the version 11.0 Build 62.10 with the command line. The same actions can also be executed with the GUI.

This task is pretty much all the time successful and easy in a lab but things could get complicated in a production environment, remember to always take a full backup of the configuration.

Download new Firmware

NetScaler firmware are available on Citrix website. Go to https://www.citrix.com/downloads/netscaler-adc/firmware.html

Select the version of NetScaler you want to install on your appliances (11.0 in this lab).

Select Version
Select Version

Select the firmware you want to download (11.0 Build 62.10) and then click on Download File.

Download firmware
Download firmware

Upload firmware on NetScaler appliances

Once downloaded, upload the new firmware file in /var/install/ on all the appliances using WinSCP.

Upload Firmware
Upload Firmware

We discussed how to transfer files to a NetScaler in this post.

Install Firmware

Requirements

Disable HA sync

Connect to the secondary appliance via SSH.

Disable HA sync on the secondary node:

Backup and Save the configuration

Connect to the primary NetScaler, save the configuration:

Backup the configuration:

Step 1: secondary NetScaler node

Connect to the secondary appliance.

You can display the current version installed with the following command:

Show current version
Show current version

Switch to shell mode and navigate to the /var/install/ folder on the appliance

And then uncompress the file previously downloaded with the following command:

Uncompress firmware file
Uncompress firmware file

This will uncompress the firmware data in the same folder.

Files are uncompressed
Files are uncompressed

To install the firmware, type:

Install Firmware
Install Firmware

Install in progress.

Install in progress
Install in progress

After few minutes, type Y to reboot your appliance.

Reboot appliance
Reboot appliance

Once the appliance has rebooted, type :

Show version
Show version

This appliance is now running the 62.10 version.

Make sure that the HA sync is still disabled:

HA Sync is disabled
HA Sync is disabled

Force failover

Now that the secondary appliance is updated, we need to move the primary role from the first node to the secondary node. To do that, type the command below:

Step 2: primary NetScaler node

Repeat Step 1 on the first NetScaler.

Force failover again

Now that the first appliance is updated, we need to revert the HA primary role to this appliance. To do that, type the command below:

CitrixGuru_Lab_Capture_89_1441933721

Enable HA Sync

Validation

The first validation would be to validate the version with the command line or the GUI.

In the command type:

With the GUI, you can see the version of the top of the screen.

Version GUI
Version GUI

You can also review the full configuration, type the command below on the primary node:

 

That’s all for the upgrade. In the next post, we will discuss how to save, backup and restore NetScaler configuration.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. Nice post! I would only make a correction to the following section: Backup the configuration. Looks as some code is missing a ” or something like that.

    Very nice work!

  2. 1. HA sync is AUTO DISABLED when running between two different releases. There is no needs to enable or disable it. You also want to have similar config on both nodes, so even if you are disabling sync, it is following after saving.
    2. The first validation of running config must be before 1st upgrade (secondary netscaler), as long as verifying that propagation and sync is fine, so when secondary node becomes a primary you will not receive misconfiguration.
    3. Before secondary upgrade it is a good option to check that new release is working as expected.

  3. Can you offer any suggestions on upgrading from 10.1 b124 to 11.1 and what versions need to be installed? Best Practice document CTX126793 recommends upgrading incrementally through the versions. I am not able to find what those versions should be. Do you need to verify functionality at each upgrade level?

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