Upgrade and Migration Guide

Several upgrade procedures are supported for this release of VMware tc Server.

Note: If you want to upgrade to the latest tc Server package, see one of these two sections:

In tc Server 4.x there is no steps required to run directly against existing tc Runtime instances. The tc Server installation just needs to be pointed at the existing instances and runtimes and it will manage those instances and runtimes. If the default locations are used tc Server will automatically use the previous versions runtimes and instances.

Upgrade an Instance to a Newer tc Runtime Binary

This section has instructions for upgrading tc Runtime instances to a new version of the tc Runtime.

For example, suppose that your tc Server release came bundled with 9.0.6.B.RELEASE. Later, you could decide to upgrade to the 9.0.43.A.RELEASE (or another version) when it is released. The instructions in this section enable you to stay current with new tc Runtime releases without fully installing the full tc Server installation. This lets you take advantage of getting the latest features, security vulnerability fixes, and bug fixes.

Before You Start

Be sure to stop a tc Server instance before you upgrade the tc runtime version. For instructions, see Starting and Stopping tc Runtime Instances.

Procedure

  1. Change directory to the tc Server installation directory. For example:

    cd /opt/pivotal/tcserver/standard-4.1.8.RELEASE

  2. Use the --list option to view a list of available runtimes to install. The command generally requires a few seconds to return the list. For example:

    tcserver list-runtimes
Checking available tc Runtimes

Available tc Runtimes for tc Server 4:

    7.0.84.B.RELEASE
    8.5.27.B.RELEASE - INSTALLED
    9.0.6.B.RELEASE - INSTALLED
    9.0.7.A.RELEASE

Runtimes are specified by version, such as 8.5.27.B.RELEASE. If ’- INSTALLED’ trails the version number, that indicates the runtime version is currently installed for this version of tcserver.

  1. Use the get-runtime command to download and install a specific runtime version. For example:

    $ tcserver get-runtime 9.0.43.A.RELEASE
Checking available tc Runtimes
Retrieving tc Runtime version 9.0.43.A.RELEASE
Extracting tc Runtime version 9.0.43.A.RELEASE to /opt/pivotal/tcserver/runtimes

    If the specified version is already installed, then the command returns a message similar to the following:

    prompt$ ./tcserver get-runtime 9.0.6.B.RELEASE
Runtime version 9.0.6.B.RELEASE has been detected as already being installed.

Upgrade within Same Major Version (4.x -> 4.x)

When upgrading within the same tc Server major version (4.0.0 to 4.1.6 for example) the new tc Server version needs to be pointed at the old tc Server version’s runtimes.directory and instances.directory which if using the recommended defaults will be the same. Look in conf/tcserver.properties of the old tc Server version. If runtimes.directory and instances.directory are not set, and the tc Server installation directory has the same parent as the new tc Server version there is nothing that needs to be changed.

Example:

  • Old tc Server directory: /opt/pivotal/tcserver/standard-4.0.0.RELEASE
  • Old rutimes.directory is unset
  • Old instances.directoryis unset
  • New tc Server directory: /opt/pivotal/tcserver/standard-4.1.6.RELEASE
  • New runtimes.directory is unset
  • New instances.directory is unset

If either of those properties are set in the old tc Server’s conf/tcserver.properties then they should be also set in the new tc Server Version. If unset and the tc Server parent directory (/opt/pivotal/tcserver in the previous example) is the same then they may remain unset. Otherwise their values will need to be set to the location used by the previous tc Server version.

Upgrade an Instance in a New tc Server Major Version (3.x to 4.x)

Note: tc Runtime instances can only be upgraded to the same major version number. For example: If current instance tc Runtime version is 7.0.84.B.RELEASE, you can not upgrade it to 8.5.x, or 9.0.x. You are required to create a new instance with the desired tc Runtime version and manually copy configuration over.

This section has instructions for upgrading tc Server instances to a new version of tc Server.

Run the tcserver upgrade command to upgrade an existing tc Server instance to a new version of tc Server. The upgrade command migrates configuration information and applications from an existing instance to the new one. The command takes this form:

 tcserver upgrade -v
        <tcRuntimeVersion> -i PathToNewInstanceDirectory PathToOldInstance

where:

tcRuntimeVersion is the Tomcat binary that you want the new instance to use, for example, 9.0.6.B.RELEASE.

Note:

  • The tc Runtime version must exist in the new tc Server installation directory. If you want to use a tc Runtime that exists in your previous tc Server installation, but not the new one, you must copy it into the new tc Server installation directory.
  • If you do not use the -v option to specify a binary version, the upgrade assumes you do not want to upgrade the binary and tries to create the new instance with the same binary. If the older instance uses a version of Tomcat that does not exist in the new version of tc Server, you must copy it from the older tc Server installation to the new one, or the upgrade will fail.

PathToNewInstanceDirectory specifies the directory in which you want the upgraded instance to be created.

Note:

  • If you do not use the -i option to specify a directory, the instance will be created in the current working directory.
  • If you specify the directory where the old instance exists, that instance will be upgraded in place.

PathToOldInstance points to the instance that you wish to upgrade.

Before You Start

Procedure

The example commands in the instructions below assume you are upgrading a tc Server 3.2.9 created instance to 4.0.0.RELEASE.

  1. Install the new version of tc Server in a new installation directory, as described in Installing VMware tc Server. For example, install tc Server 4.0.0 in /opt/pivotal/tcserver/standard-4.0.0.RELEASE.
  2. If the directory where you want the upgraded server instance to be installed does not exist, create it.

  3. Change directory to new TCS installation directory. For example:

    cd /opt/pivotal/tcserver/standard-4.1.8.RELEASE

  4. Run the upgrade command. For example:

    tcserver upgrade -i ../tcs-4.0.0-instances -v 9.0.6.B.RELEASE  ../tcs-3.2.9-instances/myserver1

    The command above creates an upgraded version of the “myserver1” instance in the ../tcs-4.0.0-instances directory.

Upgrading Java Version

It is recommended to create a duplicate instance prior to upgrading Java. The duplicate instance can be used for testing purposes.

To upgrade the java version, the JAVA_HOME variable in bin/setenv.sh (Unix) and the set.JAVA_HOME property in conf/wrapper.conf (Windows) needs to be updated to point to the new Java Home.

When upgrade from a Java version prior to 8 any PermGen settings should be removed. These are usually found in the JAVA_OPT variable in bin/setenv.sh

An example of a Java 6 setenv.sh

  # Edit this file to set custom options
  # Tomcat accepts two parameters JAVA_OPTS and CATALINA_OPTS
  # JAVA_OPTS are used during START/STOP/RUN
  # CATALINA_OPTS are used during START/RUN

  JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home"
  AGENT_PATHS=""
  JAVA_AGENTS=""
  JAVA_LIBRARY_PATH=""
  JVM_OPTS="-Xmx512M -Xss256K -XX:MaxPermSize-512M"
  JAVA_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS $AGENT_PATHS $JAVA_AGENTS $JAVA_LIBRARY_PATH"

An example of a Java 8 setenv.sh

  # Edit this file to set custom options
  # Tomcat accepts two parameters JAVA_OPTS and CATALINA_OPTS
  # JAVA_OPTS are used during START/STOP/RUN
  # CATALINA_OPTS are used during START/RUN

  JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_151.jdk/Contents/Home"
  AGENT_PATHS=""
  JAVA_AGENTS=""
  JAVA_LIBRARY_PATH=""
  JVM_OPTS="-Xmx512M -Xss256K"
  JAVA_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS $AGENT_PATHS $JAVA_AGENTS $JAVA_LIBRARY_PATH"

It may be necessary to set the -XX:MaxMetaspaceSize which by default is only limited by the amount of memory available to the java process. Not setting this value could result in a server crash. Do not set Metaspace to be the same as a previous PermGem size as they have different meanings and purposes.