Updating XClarity Administrator virtual appliances

You can update the Lenovo XClarity Administrator virtual appliances to install the latest software.

Before you begin

Learn more

XClarity Administrator: Fix pack update

For all Electronic Customer Care (ECC) connections that are configured for a proxy, the proxy must be a forwarding proxy and must not terminate the connection. The call home and updates functions of XClarity Administrator use the ECC connections.

Note

Review the following considerations before updating XClarity Administrator.

• After updating XClarity Administrator to v4.1

  • You must reconfigure the OS credentials on the Provisioning > Deploy OS Images > Global Settings > Credentials page. You can continue to use the same password.

  • The start time of some existing root jobs and the state of some subjobs might change.

• You cannot update from an earlier version of XClarity Administrator as a Docker container to XClarity Administrator v4.0. Instead you must install the full image of XClarity Administrator v4.0 (see Installing Lenovo XClarity Administrator in a Docker, CentOS, Citrix, Red Hat KVM, Rocky, Ubuntu, VMware ESXi, or Windows Hyper-V environment).

• To manage XClarity Administrator v4.0 or later instances using Lenovo XClarity Orchestrator, XClarity Orchestrator v2.0 or later is required. If you are updating XClarity Administrator to v4.0 or later, ensure that XClarity Orchestrator is already at v2.0 or later.

• XClarity Administrator cPlus edition supports additional devices requested by China customers. You can apply XClarity Administrator cPlus edition to XClarity Administrator v3.5 or later. Before applying the XClarity Administrator cPlus edition patch, you must enable a global setting.
  1. From the XClarity Administrator main menu, click Administration > Update Management Server to display the Management Server Update page.
  2. Click All Actions > Global Settings to display the Global Settings: Update Management Server dialog.
  3. Select Enable update to XClarity Administrator cPlus.
  Attention

  • XClarity Administrator cPlus edition cannot be uninstalled. To revert to XClarity Administrator (without the cPlus features), you must reinstall XClarity Administrator.
  • After applying the XClarity Administrator cPlus edition patch, you can only apply future XClarity Administrator cPlus patches. You cannot apply an XClarity Administrator patch without cPlus features.

  For more information about XClarity Administrator cPlus, see the XClarity Administrator cPlus online documentation.

• When you update XClarity Administrator, some predefined device drivers and boot files might also be updated. Any customized OS-image profiles that use those files are automatically updated to include the new files. For more information about customized OS-image profiles, see Customizing OS-image profiles.
• Management server updates (patches) without payloads that are earlier than the currently installed version are not listed in the table on the Management Server Update page. Patches with payloads that are earlier than the currently installed version are listed in the table with an applied status of Not applicable and cannot be applied to the management server.
• All repository packs (with or without payloads) are listed in the table on the Management Server Update page.
• Only stored credentials can be used to authenticate to ThinkServer server, System x M4 servers, and RackSwitch devices. Manual user accounts are not supported.
• When Call Home is enabled, service requests are first routed to the Lenovo Support, and then forwarded to IBM, if appropriate for certain devices.

Procedure

To update XClarity Administrator, complete the following steps.

1. From the XClarity Administrator main menu, click Administration > Update Management Server to display the Management Server Update page.

   You can sort the table columns to make it easier to find specific updates. In addition, you can select an update type from the Filter By Type drop-down lists to list only those updates that meet the selected criteria.

   
   
   
2. Download the latest XClarity Administrator update:

   • If XClarity Administrator is connected to the Internet:

     1. Retrieve information about the latest updates by clicking the All Actions > Refresh Product Catalog. New management-server updates and firmware-update repository packs are listed in the table on the Management Server Update page.

        Refreshing this information might take several minutes to complete.

        Note

        Refreshing the product catalog does not automatically download update packages.
     2. Select the management-server update that you want to download.
        Tip

        Ensure that the package that you select has Patch in the Type column.
     3. Click the Download icon ().

        When the download is complete, the Download Status for that update changes to Downloaded.

   • If XClarity Administrator is not connected to the Internet:

     1. Download the management-server update from the XClarity Administrator download webpage to a workstation that has network connection to the XClarity Administrator host.
     2. From the Management Server Update page, click the Import icon (),
     3. Click Select Files, and browse to the location of the management-server update on the workstation.

     4. Select all package files, and then click Open.

        You must import the .metadata file (.xml) as well as the image or payload file (.zip, .bin, .uxz, or .tgz), change history file (.chg), and readme file (.txt) for the update. Any files that are selected but are not specified in the .XML file are discarded. If you do not include the XML file, the update is not imported.

     5. Click the Import.

        When the import is complete, the management-server update is listed in the table on the Management Server Update page, and the Download Status for that software update is Downloaded.

     You can monitor the import progress by clicking Monitoring > Jobs from the XClarity Administrator menu bar.

3. Back up the XClarity Administrator virtual appliance by creating a clone (see Backing up Lenovo XClarity Administrator).
4. Ensure that no jobs are currently running. You can view a list of currently running jobs from the Jobs log (see Monitoring jobs).
5. Select the update package that you want to install.

   You can sort the table columns to make it easier to find specific update packages. In addition, you can select an update-package type and age from the Filter by drop-down lists.

   Note

   Ensure that Download Status is Downloaded. and the Type is Patch.
6. Click the Perform Update icon ().

   You can monitor the update progress by clicking Monitoring > Jobs from the XClarity Administrator menu bar.

7. Wait a few minutes for the update to complete and XClarity Administrator to be restarted.
   If you have access to the virtual appliance host, you can monitor the progress from the virtual-appliance console, for example:

   -------------------------------------------------
   Lenovo XClarity Administrator - Version 1.1.0
   -------------------------------------------------
   
   eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:10
             inet addr:10.240.61.98  Bcase:10.240.63.255  Mask:255.255.252.0
             inet6 addr: fe80:200:ff:fe00:10/64 Scopt:Link
   
   eth1      Disabled
   
   idxhwmgr login: Lenovo XClarity Administrator Repository Update
   Detected appliance version is 1.1.0
   Applying XClarity Administrator Repository Update...
   .
   .
   .
   
   

   Attention

   Do not restart the virtual appliance manually during the update process.
8. Determine if the update is complete by refreshing the web browser. When completed, the Applied Status column changes to Applied.

   If you applied a management server update, the XClarity Administrator version that is listed above the table on the Update Management Server page changes to the version that was just applied.

9. Clear the web browser cache.