Prerequisites and guidelines for upgrading an existing Nexus Dashboard cluster
Before you upgrade your existing Nexus Dashboard cluster:
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Ensure that you have read the target release's Release Notes for any changes in behavior, guidelines, and issues that may affect your upgrade.
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After upgrading to Nexus Dashboard release 3.2(2), you might see upgrade attempts through RADIUS failing with the following error:
Message-Authenticator attribute was not received from RADIUS server, non-compliant server is in use.
Adjust the enable sending of the
Message-Authenticator
attribute in the RADIUS settings to resolve this issue. -
After you upgrade to this release, you can no longer change the number of services enabled in your cluster.
Previously, each cluster has a "deployment mode" which defines the combination of enabled services and cannot be changed after the cluster is deployed or upgraded. In other words, you will not be able to add or remove services after upgrading to this release without redeploying the cluster. If you were planning to add or remove services in your cluster, we recommend doing so before upgrading to release 3.2(x).
Note
In some cases, a deployment mode supported in release 3.2(x) may have not been supported in a prior release (for example, cohosting Insights and Orchestrator is not supported in virtual clusters in release 3.0.1). In this case, if you have a single service (such as Insights) deployed in your current cluster but you plan to add another service (such as Orchestrator) after the upgrade:
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Disable existing Insights service in your current cluster.
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Install the additional Orchestrator service in your current cluster.
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Enable the Orchestrator service in your current cluster.
At this point you would have both Insights and Orchestrator in your current cluster with Insights disabled and Orchestrator enabled. Note that you must not enable both services at the same time if it is not a supported configuration in your current release.
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Disable the Orchestrator service and proceed with the upgrade.
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If you are running Nexus Dashboard Insights service in a 4-node or 5-node physical cluster, you can simply upgrade the cluster and the service to this release as you typically would and continue using the 4-node or 5-node cluster.
Nexus Dashboard release 3.2(x) with Nexus Dashboard Insights supports only 3-node and 6-node profiles for greenfield deployments. However, if you are upgrading an existing 4-node or 5-node cluster from an earlier release without changing your current scale, you can continue using it with release 3.2(x).
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If you are upgrading a physical Nexus Dashboard cluster, ensure that the nodes have the supported CIMC version for the target Nexus Dashboard release.
Supported CIMC versions are listed in the Nexus Dashboard Release Notes for the target release.
Note
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For Nexus Dashboard release 3.2(1), do not upgrade the CIMC version to 4.3(5.x) or higher.
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For Nexus Dashboard release 3.2(2), if you are going to upgrade your UCS server firmware to 4.3(5x), you must first upgrade or install your Nexus Dashboard release to 3.2(2) before you can upgrade your UCS server firmware to 4.3(5x). See the "Supported UCS server firmware" section in the Nexus Dashboard and Services Release Notes, Release 3.2.2 for the UCS server firmware versions that are supported.
CIMC upgrade is described in detail in the "Troubleshooting" article in the Nexus Dashboard documentation library.
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If you are upgrading a virtual Nexus Dashboard cluster deployed in Linux KVM, you must enable the
Copy host CPU configuration
option in the Virtual Machine Manager UI.-
The Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.1 release supports CentOS 7.9 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 or 8.8 with the following Kernel and KVM versions:
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For CentOS 7.9, Kernel version
3.10.0-957.el7.x86_64
and KVM versionlibvirt-4.5.0-23.el7_7.1.x86_64
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For RHEL 8.6, Kernel version
4.18.0-372.9.1.el8.x86_64
and KVM versionlibvert 8.0.0
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For RHEL 8.8, Kernel version
4.18.0-477.10.1.el8_8.x86_64
amd KVM versionlibvirt 8.0.0-19
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The Nexus Dashboard 3.2.2 release supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 or 8.10 but does not support CentOS 7.9. If you deployed your Nexus Dashboard in CentOS 7.9 in a release prior to 3.2.2, see Migrating from CentOS 7.9 to RHEL 8.8 or 8.10 before upgrading to Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.2.
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If you are upgrading a virtual Nexus Dashboard cluster deployed in VMware ESX, ensure that the ESX version is still supported by the target release.
This release supports VMware ESXi 7.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 8.0, 8.0.2.
Note
If you need to upgrade the ESX server, you must do that before upgrading your Nexus Dashboard. ESX upgrades are outside the scope of this document, but in short:
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Upgrade one of the ESX hosts as you typically would with your existing Nexus Dashboard node VM running.
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After the host is upgraded, ensure that the Nexus Dashboard cluster is still operational and healthy.
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Repeat the upgrade on the other ESX hosts one at a time.
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After all ESX hosts are upgraded and the existing Nexus Dashboard cluster is healthy, proceed with upgrading your Nexus Dashboard to the target release as described in this document.
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You must be running Nexus Dashboard release 3.0(1) or later to upgrade directly to release 3.2(x). If you are running an earlier version of Nexus Dashboard, we recommend first upgrading it to release 3.0(1) as described in the respective deployment guide.
Note
Any service version compatible with and deployed in your existing Nexus Dashboard release 3.0(1) or later cluster will be upgraded along with the cluster to the target release.
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Ensure that your current Nexus Dashboard cluster is healthy.
You can check the system status on the Overview page of the Nexus Dashboard's Admin Console or by logging in to one of the nodes as
rescue-user
and ensuring that theacs health
command returnsAll components are healthy
. -
You must disable all services running in the cluster before upgrading to this release.
Note
Because of the unified installation image in this release, all of your existing services will be automatically upgraded to the version compatible with this Nexus Dashboard release while preserving their configuration. The services will also be automatically re-enabled after the upgrade is completed.
Ensure that any existing services which you want to retain and upgrade to the target release have been enabled at least once. If you have any services that were installed but never enabled in your existing cluster, the upgrade validation will fail and you can either delete the unactivated services or activate them before re-trying the upgrade.
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You must perform configuration backups of your Nexus Dashboard and services before the upgrade to safeguard data and minimize any potential risk before proceeding with the upgrade.
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Ensure that no configuration changes are made to the cluster, such as adding
secondary
orstandby
nodes, while the upgrade is in progress. -
Nexus Dashboard does not support platform downgrades.
If you want to downgrade to an earlier release, you will need to deploy a new cluster and reinstall the services.
Migrating from CentOS 7.9 to RHEL 8.8 or 8.10
CentOS 7.9 is supported for releases prior to Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.2 but is not supported for Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.2 and later, whereas RHEL 8.10 and 8.10 is supported in Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.2 and later. If you deployed your Nexus Dashboard in CentOS 7.9 in a release prior to 3.2.2, this section describes how to migrate from CentOS 7.9 to RHEL 8.8 or 8.10 when you upgrade from that earlier release to Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.2.
Procedure
Step 1 |
Deploy or upgrade your Nexus Dashboard software to the Nexus Dashboard 3.2.1 release in Linux KVM, if you're not on Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.1 already, where the KVM host is running on CentOS 7.9. See Upgrading Existing ND Cluster to This Release for those procedures. After the upgrade is complete, you should now have Nexus Dashboard 3.2.1 deployed in CentOS 7.9. |
Step 2 |
Take a backup from your Nexus Dashboard in CentOS 7.9. See Unified Backup and Restore for Nexus Dashboard and Services, Release 3.2.x for those procedures. |
Step 3 |
Remaining in Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.1, deploy your Nexus Dashboard in Linux KVM, where the KVM host is running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.8 or 8.10 with KVM. See Deploying in Linux KVM (Releases Prior to 3.2.2) for those procedures. |
Step 4 |
Remaining in Nexus Dashboard release 3.2.1, restore from the CentOS 7.9 backup that you took in Step 2. See Unified Backup and Restore for Nexus Dashboard and Services, Release 3.2.x for those procedures. |
Step 5 |
Upgrade your Nexus Dashboard software to the Nexus Dashboard 3.2.2 release. See Upgrading Existing ND Cluster to This Release for those procedures. |