Upgrading to v18.x from v16.10

The newest version of ExaVault contains critical security updates as compared to the legacy version 16.10. Any user of 16.10 should upgrade to 18.x as soon as possible.

Version 18.x also includes the following major improvements and changes:

• References to our previous brand names Smartfile and Veristack are replaced with ExaVault everywhere.

• License key updating is now automatic, meaning you will never need to manually upload a license key ever again. Paid and Enterprise license renewals will be seamlessly processed.

• Our previous PDF and document viewer has been replaced with a higher quality PDF viewer that is less error-prone. The new viewer does not support annotations or electronic signatures, however, we are not aware of any v16.10 customers actually using these features. Please contact us before upgrading if you required one of these capabilities.

• The previous "Django" administration panel which provided direct access to the internal database is no longer included or supported.

• User roles are replaced with attributes on the User object. (Existing users will be seamlessly migrated.)

• SMS-based 2FA now requires that you provide your own Twilio credentials.

• Exciting new paid features are now supported, including automatic updates, SSO, 2FA, and automatic registration and renewal of SSL certificates.

This upgrade will require downtime for your current production system. You need to power down your existing installation VM long enough to copy the data to the new VM.

As part of the name change from SmartFile to ExaVault, the upgrade process to v18.x involves renaming several databases and folders on disk. This is to ensure that your appliance will completely match a fresh installation and match the documentation. This part of the upgrade is performed automatically when you start the appliance later in the process.

Preparation

Prior to the upgrade, please perform the following steps:

Make a backup first of the entire production VM including primary and secondary disks. While we've never seen anyone experience a failure following these upgrade instructions, taking a backup first provides a safeguard against the unforeseen interrupting a step that can't be recovered.

Save a copy of the network configuration locally. This will be needed to build a new netplan file. This configuration is likely found in the file /etc/network/interfaces

Launching The New VM Instance

We support two environments for launching the ExaVault VM: VMWare and EC2.

EC2 Instructions

Launch a new EC2 instance using the appropriate ExaVault v18.x AMI for your region. We recommend using a c7i.xlarge instance type.

VMWare Instructions

Launch a new VM instance in VMware using the ExaVault v18.x VMWare OVA file. For best results, we recommend that you deploy the image from your Content Libraries in vSphere.

Once the new VM is created, select the new Virtual Machine and choose Edit Settings.

Change the CPU and Memory settings to match the previous configuration. Normally this is 4 vCPU and 16 GB of memory.

Confirm that the VM Options settings are set correctly. The Guest OS Family must be set to Linux, and the Guest OS Version to Debian GNU/Linux 6 (64bit).

Expand the root disk for your new VM to match the size of the root disk from the previous VM.

Copy or restore your secondary disk into this new VM instance. If you are copying, first power off the source VM to prevent changes to the source data disk.

Power on the virtual machine and login as admin with the password DefaultPassChangeMe1! .

Change the hostname to match your current hostname using the command:

hostnamectl set-hostname <existing_hostname>

Use the passwd command to change the password for the admin user.

Create and apply the appropriate netplan configuration in /etc/netplan/.

Netplan example configuration

Use the example template below to create a network configuration for your environment.

network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    ens192:
      dhcp4: no
      addresses:
      - 192.168.0.5/24
      nameservers:
        addresses: [8.8.8.8, 4.2.2.2]
      routes:
      - to: 0.0.0.0/0
        via: 192.168.0.1
      routing-policy:
      - from: 192.168.0.1/24

After the network configuration has been set, apply the changes:

netplan apply

Configuring and Finalizing the Upgrade

Execute the following commands in a shell to configure and finalize the upgrade to version 18.x:

Create the /data dir:

mkdir -p /data

Remount the existing disk:

exavaultmount -o remount --destination /data --source /dev/sdb1 --type xfs

Start the application:

exavaultctl -o start

Allow a few minutes for your appliance to upgrade all database names. After a few minutes, your appliance should be up and running on the new v18.x version.

Here's how to check the logs for errors:

docker logs -n 10 -f exavault_api_1