Updating Automatically

Starting from version 7.5, newly deployed Virtuozzo Server nodes are configured to get updates automatically by default. Automatic updating requires a valid license to be installed. Manual updating remains possible and does not depend on license status.

Note the following, however:

• Automatic updating is not enabled for nodes upgraded from older versions of Virtuozzo Server. You can enable automatic updates for them as explained in Enabling Automatic Updates for Upgraded Nodes.
• Automatic updating is disabled for Virtuozzo Storage clusters. For more information, see Updating Nodes in Virtuozzo Storage Clusters.

The following update policies are available:

• fast, get updates immediately after release.
• slow, get updates two weeks after release.
• stable, get updates six weeks after release.
• auto, a special policy that lets the Virtuozzo update server assign one of the other policies to a node.

Each node that requests updates automatically through the auto policy is registered by the Virtuozzo update server and assigned a regular update policy: fast, slow, or stable. To make automatic updating predictable, a policy is assigned to a node only once. You can change it manually, however, as explained in Changing Node Update Policy.

Each node is configured as follows during installation of Virtuozzo Server:

• The repository file /etc/yum.repos.d/vz-auto-update.repo is created. It lists node’s unique repositories for automatic updating. Such URLs contain a $hwid variable that is replaced by node’s hardware ID during updates. The file also lists the static repositories for each update policy.
  The repositories in /etc/yum.repos.d/vz-auto-update.repo are disabled by default, while those in /etc/yum.repos.d/virtuozzo.repo are enabled. This ensures that manual updating via yum update works as usual.

  Repositories in /etc/yum.repos.d/virtuozzo.repo are the same as those for the fast update policy. So running yum update delivers the latest updates as soon as they are released.

• The vzautoupdate tool for working with update policies is installed.

• The timer service vzautoupdate.timer is enabled and started. It will run vzautoupdate.service daily to get updates. A schedule, i.e. the time of day to trigger an update at, is chosen randomly and written to /etc/systemd/system/vzautoupdate.timer.d/override.conf.

• Automatic updating is enabled. An update policy is not assigned yet.

When the timer triggers an update, the following happens, given that node’s license is valid:

1. The repositories in /etc/yum.repos.d/vz-auto-update.repo are enabled, while those in /etc/yum.repos.d/virtuozzo.repo are disabled.
2. The vzautoupdate tool contacts the Virtuozzo update server at node’s HWID-based repository URLs.
3. The update server checks node’s license. If an update policy has been assigned to the node, the HWID-based URL redirects to a static repository for that update policy. Otherwise, the update server registers the node and assigns a policy to it. Then the HWID-based URL redirects to a static repository for that update policy.

4. Packages are downloaded and installed as usual by yum update.
5. The repositories in /etc/yum.repos.d/vz-auto-update.repo are disabled, while those in /etc/yum.repos.d/virtuozzo.repo are enabled again.
6. If an update contains a new kernel and a reboot is recommended, the tool attempts to notify the local administrator via sendmail (if it is running).

Enabling Automatic Updates for Upgraded Nodes

To enable automatic updates for a node that has been upgraded to Virtuozzo Server 7.5, do the following:

1. Install the required package:

   1	# yum install vzautoupdate

   Doing so delivers the repository file /etc/yum.repos.d/vz-auto-update.repo and enables automatic updating.

2. Enable and start the timer service:

   1	# systemctl enable vzautoupdate.timer; systemctl start vzautoupdate.timer

   The node will automatically request updates according to schedule. To see the schedule, run

   1	# vzautoupdate get-schedule

You can also check /etc/systemd/system/vzautoupdate.timer.d/override.conf.

Changing Node Update Policy

You can manually switch between automatic updating and specific update policies with vzautoupdate set-policy.

Switching to a policy means that when you run the update tool, it will get packages from that policy’s repositories. For example, to change node update policy to stable, run

1

# vzautoupdate set-policy stable

If you need to check packages available for a policy, use vzautoupdate available-updates. For example:

1

# vzautoupdate available-updates stable

To update packages from the selected repository, run

1

# vzautoupdate update

To switch back to automatic updating, run

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# vzautoupdate set-policy auto

If the node is still registered at the Virtuozzo update server, its update policy will be as previously assigned. Otherwise the node will get a policy according to the rules explained earlier.