We will be discussing the citrix Netscaler VPX code upgrade process in this article including commands as well as troubleshooting steps in case of any issues during the upgrade. We will be using below nomenclature for load balancer names in the article.
LB1 – Primary load balancer
LB2 – Secondary load balancer
Step1 – Login to Citrix VPX(LB1) device and save configuration & Sync configuration
> save config (You can save it from GUI as well as shown below floppy icon)
Go to System->High Availability->Nodes->Select Action-> Force Synchronization
Step2 – Backup the Citrix VPX(LB1 & LB2) load balancer
Go to System-> Backup & Restore -> Backup – > This will open backup popup.
Enter Filename-> Level (Full)-> Click on Backup (Full backup also includes all SSL certs so make sure to select full backup)
Step3 – Create a copy of ns.conf file (LB1 & LB2)
root@ns#cd /nsconfig
root@ns# cp ns.conf ns.conf-backup
Step4 – Disable the HA-Sync on Standby VPX (LB2)
root@ns# set ha-node -hasync disabled
Step5 – Download the new Netscaler image from Citrix website, if not done yet.
Step6 – Create a location for the installation package (LB1 & LB2)
root@ns# cd /var/nsinstall
root@ns# mkdir build12.0-63.13 ( build12.0-63.13 is directory name to keep the image)
Step7 – We need to move the installation file to the Netscaler device. Connect the Netscaler (LB1 & LB2) through WinSCP on your computer and move the file to netscaler in /var/nsinstall/build12.0-63.13 folder
Step8 – We need to run the installation command on secondary load balancer(LB2) first as below.
root@ns# cd /var/nsinstall/build12.0-63.13 (Hit enter)
root@ns# tar -xvzf build12.0-63.13.tgz (build12.0-63.13.tgz – Name of code file)
root@ns# ./installns (This will start the installation and load balancer will reboot with new image file)
Step9 – Once the VPX(LB2) is up with new image, compare all configuration if all configurations are intact. (Note – There might be a case that all VIP are down after upgrade, this is normal behavior. VIP will come up once you promote it as primary)
Step10 – We need to failover the traffic from Primary (LB1) to Standby load balancer(LB2) now
Go to System->High Availability->Nodes->Select Action-> Force Failover (This will move all production traffic to standby load balancer)
Step11 – LB2 will be active load balancer now, verify all the VIP status.
Step12 – Now we need to upgrade LB1 load balancer now. Follow the steps from Step6 to Step8 to upgrade the LB1 load balancer.
Step13 – LB1 will boot with new image, compare all the configurations are intact after the upgrade
Step14 – Failover the traffic from LB2 to LB1 now.
Go to System->High Availability->Nodes->Select Action-> Force Failover (This will move all production traffic to standby load balancer)
Step15 – Enable the HA-Sync on Standby VPX (LB2)
root@ns# set ha-node -hasync enabled
Step16 – Sync the configuration from LB1 to LB2
Go to System->High Availability->Nodes->Select Action-> Force Synchronization
Step17 – You can test all the applications now and verify if all connections working fine after the upgrade.
Additional Info – If you receive error message related to space issue while installing the new image, follow below process.
> df -h (This will show the available space in /var directory – You will need at least 7-8Gb space in /var directory to run the installation)
You need to clear space if the space is less in /var directory. Check the usage in /var/log or /var/nstrace or /var/nslog or /var/crash & delete old files to free space.
For ex – If you want to delete all old nstrace files, type below
root@ns# rm -r nstrace/* (This will remove all nstrace files)
root@ns# set ns vpxparam -cpuyield YES (This command is for VPX VM on ESXi for high cpu usage issue) – This issue is reported after 11.1 upgrade to 12.x
root@ns# show ns vpxparam (This will show current vpxparam details)