Updating

This chapter describes update management using the graphical user interface. To update appliances using the Manager APIs, refer to the Manager API Guide.

Managing Update Packages

The the Appliance Management page on the dashboard is the central place for updating the Manager and any connected appliances. To start updating, visit the Administration ‣ Update Bin Management page to manage update packages in one of two ways:

1. Manually, by uploading the update package. When an update is available, ReversingLabs will provide a .bin file via email or other file transfer method. Click Upload .bin to open the file upload dialog and find either the .bin file or an archive containing multiple .bin files on the local filesystem.

   In the case when the Manager instance is not connected to Spectra Intelligence, only the upgrade images manually uploaded to the Manager will be visible. The System Update page works in air-gapped situations.

2. By retrieving the update from Spectra Intelligence. The prerequisite is that the Manager is connected to the Spectra Intelligence cloud (configurable in Administration ‣ Spectra Detect Manager ‣ Spectra Intelligence). When a new update is available in Spectra Intelligence, the "System is up to date" message on the page is replaced by a button allowing the user to download the update package. Update .bin files from Spectra Intelligence are visible only if their version is newer than that of connected appliances. If multiple downloads are happening at the same time, these files are downloaded one by one.

Under the Upload .bin button, there is an indicator of the total and used disk space in the Manager update repository. The update repository disk space is set to 50 GB by default. To increase the repository size, contact ReversingLabs Support.

The rest of the page is a table showing all the .bin files that were either uploaded to the system, or can be downloaded in case the Manager is connected to Spectra Intelligence.

The table consists of the following fields:

• Appliance Type, showing the appliances connected to the Manager instance
• Version, showing the current version of each appliance
• Size, showing the size of the .bin file
• Version Prerequisite, showing the version of the appliance that is required for the update
• Action, where the user can choose to either Download the .bin file for a particular appliance or Delete the existing file

The data contained here can be filtered by the appliance type. If another .bin file of the same version is uploaded, the old one is overwritten. Upon migration, the existing .bin files will remain on the system and will remain visible.

Updating Appliances

When an update is available for the Manager or a connected appliance, it is indicated by a Update button in the Updates column on the Appliance Management page on the dashboard. Every appliance can be updated independently of other appliances of the same type.

Appliances connected using the http:// protocol will display the following message: "For security reasons, appliances cannot be updated or sync YARA rules without HTTPS URLs. Please change the appliance URL to HTTPS to update this appliance or synchronize YARA rules."

Clicking the button opens the confirmation dialog where the update process can be initiated (by clicking Update) or canceled (by clicking Cancel). An update progress bar will replace the Update button for the appliance that is being updated.

If the appliance update is successful, an "Updated to [version]" notification is displayed in the Updates column for the updated appliance.

The appliance web server and services will be restarted. Note that in some cases the whole appliance may reboot. Because of the web server restart, it is recommended to notify all appliance users of the impending update before it is applied.

If the update process fails, the Update button changes to Retry, with the additional option to Download Logs for more information on why the update failed.

The dialog allows the user to try updating the appliance again (by clicking Retry), as well as to view a detailed log and inspect why the update failed (by clicking Log).

Appliance Update Policies

Sequential Upgrade Policy

Spectra Detect and Spectra Analyze appliances can be directly upgraded from any minor version to any minor version of the next major version.

Major/feature releases are indicated by the first two numbers of the version number, while the third number is reserved for minor/patch releases.

For example, users who want to upgrade their Spectra Analyze 5.9.2 to Spectra Analyze 5.10.3 can do that without having to manually install the intermediate 5.9.3 or 5.10.1 versions.

Note that major versions are not skipped during upgrades, so upgrading directly from 5.8.X to 5.10.X is not possible without installing 5.9.X.