Once the SysOrb Agent is installed on every monitored machine, you will not have to upgrade the Agent manually for each new release of SysOrb. Instead a special package containing the Agent for every platform will be distributed with the SysOrb Server.
Notice: When upgrading from version 2.4.0 you must take special care of any log checks activated on a SysOrb agent. See Section 3.5 for details.
Every time the Agent checks in to the Server, it will check whether a new version of itself is available. If that is the case, it will download the new version and upgrade itself without human intervention.
In order to enable this, all you have to do is copy the .spm file containing the new Agent into /var/sysorb/upgrade on non-Windows systems (except Mandrake, where the directory is located at /var/opt/sysorb-server/upgrade), or C:\Program Files\SysOrb Server\Upgrade on Windows. The the Agents will start downloading the next time they check in.
Troubleshooting tip: If the agents do not upgrade, you can try enabling the log_upgrade_debug switch on the SysOrb Server and restart it. (See Chapter 5 for details on configuring the Agent) Within the first about 50 lines written in server.log after the restart should be a line like
Scanning for autoupgrade packages in...and immediately after the server will list the package files it finds.
The agent/server protocol is designed with the utmost care for security. The server has to authenticate itself using a 128 bit key, which is also used for encryption of subsequent communication. The chances of a hacker intercepting the transfer of an upgraded Agent executable are minimal. However, if the machine running the SysOrb Server is otherwise compromised, a clever hacker would be able to trick the SysOrb Server into sending any file as an Agent upgrade, thereby gaining access to all the machines running Agents.
If you will not risk this on your mission critical machines, you can instruct individual Agents not to download executables from the SysOrb Server, no matter what the server says. (See Chapter 8 for details on configuring the Agent)
The installed auto-upgrade packages are local to the SysOrb Server or Satellite they are installed on. This means that the auto-upgrade packages needs to be installed on all SysOrb Servers or Satellites where agents check-in, in order to upgrade all the agents.