Juniper NETWORKS Upgrading Control Center from Version 2.34 User Guide

Juniper NETWORKS Upgrading Control Center from Version 2.34

Introduction

This document concerns upgrading of Paragon Active Assurance Control Center from version 2.34 to a later version. The upgrade entails special procedures as it involves upgrading the Ubuntu OS from 16.04 to 18.04. The document covers two scenarios:

• Upgrade of Ubuntu 16.04 (with Control Center installed) to Ubuntu 18.04.
• Fresh installation of Ubuntu 18.04 followed by installation of Control Center and transfer of backup data from an old Control Center instance to the new instance.

For other upgrades, please refer to the Upgrade Guide.

Scenario A: Upgrade of Ubuntu 16.04 to Ubuntu 18.04

• Begin by disabling the apache2 and net rounds-call execute services:
• Stop all Paragon Active Assurance services:
• Take backups of Paragon Active Assurance product data.

NOTE: This is the backup procedure described in the Operations Guide, chapter Backing Up Product Data, only more briefly worded.

Run these commands:

NOTE: The pg_dump command will ask for a password which can be found in /etc/netrounds/netrounds.conf under “postgres database”. The default password is “netrounds”.

NOTE: For a large-scale setup (> 50 GB), making a tarball of the RRD files might take too long, and taking a snapshot of the volume can be a better idea. Possible solutions for doing this include: using a file system that supports snapshots, or taking a snapshot of the virtual volume if the server is running in a virtual environment.

• Check the integrity of the database using the supplied script netrounds_2.35_validate_db.sh.

WARNING: If this script outputs warnings, do not attempt the database migration procedure described “below” on page 5. Contact Juniper support by filing a ticket at https://support.juniper.net/support/requesting-support (supplying the output from the script) to have the problems with the database resolved before you proceed with the upgrade.

• Take backups of the Control Center configuration files:

For example:

• Upgrade Ubuntu to version 18.04. A typical upgrade procedure is as follows (adapted from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes):
• To upgrade on a server system:
• Install update-manager-core if it is not already installed.
• Make sure the Prompt line in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades is set to ‘lts’ (to ensure that the OS is upgraded to the 18.04, the next LTS version after 16.04).
• Launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade.
• Follow the on-screen instructions. As far as Paragon Active Assurance is concerned, you can keep the defaults throughout. (It may of course happen that you need to make different choices for reasons unrelated to Paragon Active Assurance.)
• Once Ubuntu has been upgraded, reboot the system. Then perform the following steps:
• Upgrade PostgreSQL.
• Update PostgreSQL database files from version 9.5 to version 10:
• Remove the outdated version of PostgreSQL:
• Update Paragon Active Assurance packages.
• Compute the checksum for the tarball containing the new Control Center version and verify that it is equal to the SHA256 checksum provided on the download page:
• Unpack the Control Center tarball:
• Install new Control Center packages:
• Remove the obsolete packages:

NOTE: It is vital to remove these packages.

• Before doing the database migration, you need to perform some additional steps. Go to this Knowledge base article, scroll down to the section Actions if the release has been installed, and perform steps 1 through 4 of those instructions.

NOTE: Do not perform step 5 at this point.

• Run the database migration:

NOTE: Before migrating, you must ensure that the database integrity check described “above” on page 2 completes without error.

The ncc migrate command takes considerable time to execute (many minutes). It should print the following (details omitted below):

• (Optional) Update the ConfD package if you need ConfD:
• Compare the previously backed-up configuration files with the newly installed ones, and manually merge the contents of the two sets of files (they should remain in the same locations).
• Enable the apache2, Kafka, and net rounds-call execute services:
• Start Paragon Active Assurance services:
• To activate the new configuration, you also need to run:
• Install new Test Agent repositories:
• Since support for Test Agent Lite was dropped in version 2.35, you should remove the old Test Agent Lite packages if you have them installed:

NOTE: When you upgrade to 3.x later on, you must begin by running this command: sudo apt-mark unhold python-django python-django-common

Scenario B: Fresh Ubuntu 18.04 Installation

• On the Ubuntu 16.04 instance, take backups of Paragon Active Assurance product data.

NOTE: This is the backup procedure described in the Operations Guide, chapter “Backing Up Product Data”, only more briefly worded.

Run these commands:

NOTE: The pg_dump command will ask for a password which can be found in /etc/netrounds/netrounds.conf under “postgres database”. The default password is “netrounds”.

NOTE: For a large-scale setup (> 50 GB), making a tarball of the RRD files might take too long, and taking a snapshot of the volume can be a better idea. Possible solutions for doing this include: using a file system that supports snapshots, or taking a snapshot of the virtual volume if the server is running in a virtual environment.

• On the Ubuntu 16.04 instance, take backups of the Control Center configuration files:
• /etc/apache2/sites-available/netrounds-ssl.conf
• /etc/apache2/sites-available/netrounds.conf
• /etc/netrounds/netrounds.conf
• /etc/netrounds/probe-connect.conf
• /etc/openvpn/netrounds.conf

For example:

• On the Ubuntu 16.04 instance, back up the license file.
• The new instance needs to satisfy at least the same hardware requirements as the old one.
• On the new instance, install Ubuntu 18.04. We recommend the following tutorial:
• https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-server

As far as Paragon Active Assurance is concerned, you can keep the defaults throughout. (It may of course happen that you need to make different choices for reasons unrelated to Paragon Active Assurance.)

• Once Ubuntu 18.04 is installed, reboot the system.
• The following disk partitioning is recommended, especially for snapshot backups (but it is up to you as a user to decide):
• Recommended partitioning for lab setup:
• /: Whole disk, ext4.
• Recommended partitioning for production setup:
• /: 10% of disk space, ext4.
• /var: 10% of disk space, ext4.
• /var/lib/netrounds/rrd: 80% of disk space, ext4.
• No encryption
• Set the time zone to UTC, for example as follows:

• Set all locales to en_US.UTF-8.
• One way to do this is to manually edit the file /etc/default/locale. Example:

• Make sure the following line is NOT commented out in the /etc/locale.gen:
• Regenerate the locale files to make sure the selected language is available:
• Make sure that traffic on the following ports are allowed to and from Control Center:
• Inbound:
• TCP port 443 (HTTPS): Web interface
• TCP port 80 (HTTP): Web interface (used by Speedtest, redirects other URLs to HTTPS)
• TCP port 830: ConfD (optional)
• TCP port 6000: Encrypted OpenVPN connection for Test Agent Appliances
• TCP port 6800: Encrypted WebSocket connection for Test Agent Applications
• Outbound:
• TCP port 25 (SMTP): Mail delivery
• UDP port 162 (SNMP): Sending SNMP traps for alarms
• UDP port 123 (NTP): Time synchronization
• Install NTP:
• First, disable timedatectl:

1. In the output, the “reach” value for the NTP servers is an octal value indicating the outcome of the last eight NTP transactions. If all eight were successful, the value will be octal 377 (= binary

   • Install PostgreSQL and set up a user for Control Center:
     Using an external PostgreSQL server is not recommended.

   • Install and configure an email server.

   • Control Center will send emails to users:

   • when they are invited to an account,

   • when sending email alarms (i.e. if email rather than SNMP is used for this purpose), and

   • when sending periodic reports.

   • Run the command

   • For a simple setup where postfix can send directly to the destination email server, you can set General type of mail configuration to “Internet Site”, and System mail name can usually be left as-is. Otherwise, postfix needs to be configured according to the environment. For guidance, refer to the official Ubuntu documentation at https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/postfix.html.

   • Install Control Center on the Ubuntu 18.04 instance. This procedure also installs the Paragon Active Assurance REST API.

0b11111111). However, when you have just installed NTP, it is likely that fewer than eight NTP transactions have occurred, so that the value will be smaller: one of 1, 3, 7, 17, 37, 77, or 177 if all transactions were successful.

• Stop all Paragon Active Assurance services:

• Restore database backup:

• Before doing the database migration, you need to perform some additional steps. Go to this Knowledge base article, scroll down to the section Actions if the release has been installed, and perform steps 1 through 4 of those instructions.
  NOTE: Do not perform step 5 at this point.

• Run the database migration:

NOTE: This is a sensitive command, and care should be taken when executing it on a remote machine. In such a scenario it is strongly recommended that you use a program like screen or tmux so that the migrate command will continue running even if the ssh session breaks.

The ncc migrate command takes considerable time to execute (many minutes). It should print the following (details omitted below):

• Transfer the backup data to the 18.04 instance using scp or some other tool.
• Restore the OpenVPN keys:
• Restore RRD data:
• Compare the backed-up configuration files with the newly installed ones, and manually merge the contents of the two sets of files (they should remain in the same locations).
• Activate the product license using the license file taken from the old instance:
• Start Paragon Active Assurance services:
• To activate the new configuration, you also need to run:
• Install new Test Agent repositories:
• (Optional) Follow the NETCONF & YANG API Orchestration Guide to install and configure ConfD if you need it.

NOTE: When you upgrade to 3.x later on, you must begin by running this command: sudo apt-mark unhold python-django python-django-common

Troubleshooting

Problems Starting ConfD
If you have problems starting ConfD after the upgrade, please contact your Juniper partner or your local Juniper account manager or sales representative in order to get a new subscription.

Problems Starting call execute
Check the callexecuter logs with the command

You may see an error like the following:

What has happened is that the net rounds-call execute*.deb package was upgraded without making sure the net rounds-call execute system service was stopped and disabled. The database is in the wrong state; it needs to be restored from the backup, and the upgrade needs to be repeated. Do the following to disable and stop the net rounds-call execute service:

Web Server Does Not Respond

Check the apache logs with the command

If you see the following error, it means that Control Center version 2.34 is running on Ubuntu 18.04, that is, Control Center has not been successfully upgraded. The solution is to upgrade Control Center to a later version as described in this document.

Restarting of Paragon Active Assurance Services Fails

• Restarting the netrounds-* services with
• produces the following message:
• This means that the services mentioned have been masked in the course of the package removal process and require manual cleanup. The cleanup procedure is shown below:

Juniper Networks, the Juniper Networks logo, Juniper, and Junos are registered trademarks of Juniper Networks, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, service marks, registered marks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners. Juniper Networks assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies in this document. Juniper Networks reserves the right to change, modify, transfer, or otherwise revise this publication without notice. Copyright © 2022 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

References

• BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes - Ubuntu Wiki
• help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/postfix.html
• CEC Juniper Community
• Install Ubuntu Server | Ubuntu
• BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes - Ubuntu Wiki
• Paragon Products Archives | Juniper Networks
• Paragon Products Archives | Juniper Networks

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