SolarWinds

Log and Event Manager

Version 6.3.1

Upgrade Guide

Last Updated: Friday, August 19, 2016

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LEM 6.3.1
August 16, 2016

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Table of Contents
Upgrade to version 6.3.1 4

Upgrade from prior versions 5

Best practices for virtual appliance upgrades 6

Resize the LEM virtual appliance 6

Additional considerations for VMWare vSphere 6

Clone the LEM virtual appliance 7

View your appliance, console, and agent versions 7

Adjust your Global Automatic Updates setting 8

Upgrade LEM appliances and components 9

Upgrade the virtual appliances 9

Troubleshoot errors during the appliance upgrade 9

Getting Help 10

Pull debugging information from your LEM virtual appliance 10

Send the log files to Customer Support 11

Upgrade the connectors 12

Upgrade connectors using the LEM console 12

Upgrade connectors using the CMC interface 12

Upgrade the consoles 13

Upgrade the Reports console 13

Upgrade the agents 14

Upgrade agents from the virtual appliance using the LEM Console 14

Upgrade LEM agents for Windows using the LEM Console 14

Upgrade LEM agents for Windows using an installer 15

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Upgrade to version 6.3.1
The Log & Event Manager (LEM) upgrade process consists of upgrading the LEM virtual appliance and the
console, agents, and reports.
The LEM 6.3.1 appliance upgrade package upgrades all LEM appliance components running LEM version
6.2.1 and later. If you are running an earlier version of LEM or TriGeo SIM, see Upgrade paths for prior
versions to review your required upgrade path.

SolarWinds recommends this upgrade for all LEM components. The latest LEM agents are available both as
stand-alone installers and as part of the LEM appliance upgrade package.

For more information about this release, see the Release Notes.

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Upgrade from prior versions
The LEM 6.3.1 appliance upgrade package upgrades LEM appliances running version 6.0.1 and later. If you
need an upgrade package for an earlier version of LEM or TriGeo SIM, open a Customer Support ticket.

The following table lists the full upgrade paths from all prior LEM versions to the latest version.

LEM VERSION UPGRADE PATH

4.5.3 5.0.2 > 5.2.1 > 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

4.6 5.0.2 > 5.2.1 > 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.0.x 5.0.2 > 5.2.1 > 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.0.2 5.2.1 > 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.1.x 5.2.1 > 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.2.1 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.3 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.4 5.4 > 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.5 5.6 > 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

5.6 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

6.0 6.0.1 > 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

6.0.1 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

6.1 6.2.1 > 6.3.1

6.2 6.3.1

6.2.1 6.3.1

6.3.0 6.3.1

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Best practices for virtual appliance upgrades
Most standard LEM deployments upgrade a single virtual appliance. If you have multiple LEM virtual
appliances, including hardware and virtual appliances, SolarWinds recommends upgrading these
appliances in the following order:

1. Alert database appliances

2. RAW nDepth appliances
3. Manager appliances

If you have a High Availability (HA) system, upgrade the primary appliance first, followed by the secondary
appliance. You can upgrade logging servers and network sensors at any time.

Resize the LEM virtual appliance

You can increase or decrease the LEM virtual appliance capacity by increasing the LEM virtual appliance
size in your hypervisor or cloning the LEM virtual appliance. This process adds up to 15 minutes to the
boot-up process to adjust the file systems.

See your hypervisor documentation for information about increasing the appliance size.

During the boot-up process, do not turn off or reboot the appliance until the startup is completed.
Subsequent bootups and reboots do not require an additional amount of time.

To retain your log data for an extended amount of time, you may need to increase the LEM virtual
appliance size. You can increase your LEM virtual appliance capacity by increasing the hard disk size in
your VMWare vSphere® or Microsoft® Hyper-V client.

Always shut down the LEM virtual appliance before you reconfigure the vSphere or Hyper-V client
disk.

When you increase the size of your virtual appliance, use the following guidelines:

n The maximum virtualization platform disk size is 2040 GB for Hyper-V and 2 TB for vSphere
ESX®/ESXi™.
n After you increase the virtual disk size, you cannot decrease its size using the same methods.
Cloning allows you to decrease the size, but not below the original disk size.
n If you have VM snapshots, you cannot increase the size of your virtual appliance.

Additional considerations for VMWare vSphere

If you are running VMware and do not have snapshots, you can edit the VM settings and change the size of
the disk. During startup, the virtual appliance recognizes the change in disk size and partitions and
adjusts the file systems appropriately. If snapshots are available, the disk size field is disabled.

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If you need to increase the size of your virtual appliance, delete all VM snapshots or increase the existing
VM by cloning it onto a larger disk. See your vSphere documentation for more information about
performing these tasks.

Clone the LEM virtual appliance

To increase or decrease the virtual appliance capacity, create a secondary hard disk for the virtual
appliance in your vSphere or Hyper-V client. When completed, start the virtual appliance to automatically
clone the existing disk to the secondary hard disk. The new disk must be large enough to accommodate all
of the data on the existing disk, but it is not required to have the same maximum capacity.

After you clone a vSphere secondary hard drive, power on the LEM and take a snapshot of the new
appliance.

For details about cloning a virtual appliance in vSphere or Hyper-V, see the documentation included with
the software.

View your appliance, console, and agent versions

LEM virtual appliances require specific upgrade paths. When you upgrade the virtual appliance,
SolarWinds recommends upgrading the desktop and reports console versions to ensure they connect
properly to the upgraded LEM virtual appliance. During the upgrade, the web console is upgraded as well.

See Enable Global Automatic Updates for information about configuring Windows agents to update
automatically.

The following table describes how to access the version for each component.

COMPONENT PROCEDURE
1. Open the LEM console and connect to the LEM virtual appliance.
a. Open a web browser window.
b. Enter the web console URL you received while configuring your
VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V software.
c. The default admin credentials automatically populate the login
Virtual appliance dialog box.
d. Click Connect to log in.
If you cannot log in, contact SolarWinds Customer Support.
2. Click Manage and select Appliances.
The version displays in the Details pane.

1. Open the LEM desktop console.

Desktop console 2. Click the SolarWinds logo in the upper-left corner to display the version
number.

1. Open the LEM reports and click the Settings tab.

Reports console
2. Click Help and select About Reports to display the version number.

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 COMPONENT PROCEDURE
1. Open the LEM console and authenticate to the virtual appliance.
LEM agent 2. Click Manage and select Nodes.
The current LEM agent version displays in the Version column.

Adjust your Global Automatic Updates setting

Before you upgrade your LEM appliance, ensure that the Global Automatic Updates setting for your LEM
agents is configured correctly. When enabled, agent upgrades occur automatically when available. Disable
this option if change management or other testing is required for agent upgrades.

1. Open the LEM console and authenticate to the LEM manager.

2. Click Manage and select Appliances.
3. Click the Settings tab in the Properties pane.
4. Select or clear the Enable Global Automatic Updates check box according to your preferences.
5. Click Save.
The Remote Updates setting is updated.

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Upgrade LEM appliances and components
When you upgrade your LEM appliances and components, upgrade the LEM appliances first.

Upgrade your LEM appliances and components in the following order:

n Virtual appliances
n Connectors
n Consoles
n Reports console
n Agents

When you perform a LEM upgrade, always reboot the LEM appliances.

Upgrade the virtual appliances

During this process, the upgrade script disconnects the LEM virtual appliance from all LEM agents and
consoles.

1. Prepare the upgrade media.

a. Download the Upgrade Package for LEM Virtual and SIM Hardware Appliance ZIP file from the
SolarWinds Customer Portal.
b. Unzip the file.
c. Open the SolarWinds Log & Event Manager 6.3.1 Upgrade folder.
d. Copy the TriGeo and Upgrade folders to the root of a network share.
The upgrade locates the two directories only when \\<server-IP>\<share-name> is
specified. For example, for \\<server-IP>\<share-name>, the TriGeo and Upgrade
directories are placed directly under <share-name>.
2. Connect to the LEM virtual appliance using the virtual console (vSphere or Hyper-V Manager) or an
SSH client (such as PuTTY).
If you are using an SSH client, use port 32022 and log in with your CMC user credentials.
3. Access the CMC prompt.
In vSphere, arrow down to Advanced Configuration, and then press Enter.
In PuTTY, log in using your CMC credentials.
4. At the cmc> prompt, enter:
upgrade
5. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the LEM appliance upgrade.

Troubleshoot errors during the appliance upgrade

If you encounter errors during the appliance upgrade, review the error message information below before
you contact Customer Support.

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 ERROR MESSAGE RESOLUTION
Rerun the upgrade script. If the script returns the error
An error occurred during the upgrade. again, pull debugging information and open a Customer
Support ticket.

You must upgrade to 6.2.1 before upgrading See Upgrading from prior versions for the appropriate
to 6.3.1. upgrade procedure.

This error occurs when the host name for your LEM virtual
appliance contains an underscore ( _ ) character.

To resolve this issue:

1. Enter exit to return to the cmc> prompt.

2. At the cmc> prompt, enter appliance, and then
press Enter.
3. At the cmc::acm prompt, enter hostname, and
then press Enter.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to change your LEM
virtual appliance hostname to a name that does not
The current host name is invalid. contain the underscore character.

The database is not running. When you change the host name, any agent
of a syslog device that sends log data to the
LEM host name will require configuration
changes.

5. Rerun the upgrade script.

If the script returns the error again, pull debugging
information from your LEM appliance and open a
Customer Support ticket.
Additionally, perform these procedures to
troubleshoot the following error:
The database is not running.

If the script returns the error again, open a Customer

Support ticket.

Getting Help
Use the debug command on your LEM virtual appliance to pull log files from the appliance to send to
Customer Support. These files contain debugging information used by Customer Support to troubleshoot
your issue.

Pull debugging information from your LEM virtual appliance

1. Connect to your LEM virtual appliance using the vSphere console view or an SSH client (such as
PuTTY).

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 If you are using an SSH client, log in to your LEM virtual appliance using your CMC credentials.
2. At the cmc> prompt, enter manager, and press Enter.
3. At the cmc::cmm prompt, enter debug, and press Enter.
4. Specify whether you want to send the debugging files as an email or save the files to a network
location.

Some debugging files may be too large to send to Customer Support through email. To resolve
this issue, save the files to a separate location, and then compress them into a ZIP file. When
completed, email the file to yourself. If you receive the email with the attached debugging
files, forward the file to Customer Support.

5. Follow the prompts on your screen to generate the files.

6. Verify that the script generated three files with the following extensions:
n .tgz
n .log
n .txt
7. Email these files to Customer Support.

These files do not contain alert data or other data from your LEM database.

8. Enter exit and press Enter to return to the cmc> prompt.

9. Enter exit and press Enter to log out of your LEM virtual appliance.

Send the log files to Customer Support

1. Save your debugging information in a compressed folder (such as a ZIP file).

If your ZIP file is 10 MB or smaller, email the file directly to your existing support case or create a new
case with Customer Support. If you established email communication with Customer Support about
this issue, reply to the existing email thread.
If your ZIP file is larger than 10 MB:
a. Navigate to [Link].
b. Click Secure Upload.
c. Enter support@[Link] in the Recipient Email field.
d. Click Start.
e. Complete the Secure Upload form and click Select files to send (Regular Upload).
f. Click Choose file and select a debug file to upload.
g. Click Open.
h. Repeat this procedure for all debug files you want to send to Customer Support.
2. When completed, click Upload & Send.
The ZIP file is sent to Customer Support.

Customer Support is not automatically notified when you upload files to the Secure File
Exchange website. If you established email communications with Customer Support about this
issue, reply to the existing email thread to notify them that you uploaded the files. Otherwise,
place a similar comment in your case.

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Upgrade the connectors
Beginning in LEM 6.2.0, you can upgrade your connectors using the LEM console. For versions prior to
6.2.0, update your connectors using the CMC command interface.

Upgrade connectors using the LEM console

1. Navigate to the Appliance grid on the Manage tab.
2. In the toolbar, click the Connector Updates drop-down menu and select Update now.
A message displays, confirming the update was applied.

Upgrade connectors using the CMC interface

1. Download the current Connector Update package from the LEM Additional Components page located
on the SolarWinds Customer Portal.

The download requires approximately 3.6 MB of disk space.

2. Prepare the update package.
a. Unzip the Connector Update Package file.

The directory structure uses approximately 100 MB of disk space.

b. Open the SolarWinds-LEM-Connectors folder.

c. Copy the LEM folder to the root of a network share.
For example: \\<server-IP>\<share-name>
The connector locates the LEM directory under the root of the share.
3. Connect to the LEM virtual appliance using a virtual console or SSH client.
4. Access the cmc> prompt.
If you are using a virtual console, scroll down to Advanced Configuration and press Enter.
If you are using an SSH Client, log in using your CMC credentials.
5. Update the connectors.

Press Enter after entering each command.

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 a. At the cmc> prompt, enter manager.
b. At the cmc::cmm# prompt, enter sensortoolupgrade.
c. Press Enter to begin the upgrade process.
d. Enter n (network) for your sensor tool updates location.
e. Press Enter to continue.
f. Enter your Windows destination share.
For example: \\server\share: \\share\folder\
g. Enter y to confirm your share name.
h. When prompted, enter your name, user name, and password.
6. Verify that the configured connectors restart after the update by monitoring the LEM Console and
searching for InternalToolOnline events in the default SolarWinds events filter.
7. When the update is completed, enter exit twice and press Enter twice to exit the CMC interface.

Upgrade the consoles

Upgrading the LEM appliance automatically updates the LEM web console. During the upgrade, you may
be reconnected automatically. To ensure you are running the latest web console version, you can:

n Refresh the console in your browser.

n Close the console, reopen your browser, and reconnect.

After you upgrade the LEM virtual appliance, upgrade the LEM desktop console to take advantage of the
new features in this release.

1. Uninstall the existing desktop console.

2. Run [Link].
3. Complete the installation wizard.
Both the LEM desktop console and the web console preserve all filters and other local settings from
previous LEM console versions.

Upgrade the Reports console

After you upgrade the LEM virtual appliance, upgrade the LEM Reports console so it is compatible with the
web or desktop console. Previously-scheduled reports will not run until you upgrade the reports console to
the latest version. This is especially important when using Windows 8 and later operating systems.

1. Open the Reports folder from your unzipped upgrade download.

2. Copy [Link] to the local drive on your Reports computer.

The security settings in some Windows operating systems require the installer to be on the
local hard drive prior to the launch.

3. Log in to the Reports computer.

4. Right-click [Link] and select Launch to run as administrator.

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 5. Complete the installation wizard.

If you are installing the update on systems running Microsoft Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or
Windows 2012 R2, include Windows 7 compatibility for the installation.

Upgrade the agents

To take advantage of new enhancements such as Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and infrastructure
updates, be sure to upgrade the LEM agents.

If you selected the Enable Global Automatic Updates check box when you adjusted your Global Automatic
Update setting, your LEM agents will update automatically. If you did not enable global automatic updates,
you can manually upgrade the LEM agents by accessing the installer through the LEM console or using an
installer downloaded directly from the SolarWinds Customer Portal.

Upgrade agents from the virtual appliance using the LEM Console

Manually pushing agent upgrades from the virtual appliance is the fastest, easiest way to manually
upgrade agents.

1. In the LEM Console, click Manage and select Nodes.

2. In the Nodes pane, select the LEM agent to upgrade.

Press and hold <Ctrl> to select more than one agent.

3. Click Remote Updates, and then select Update.

An Update Status icon for your selected agent opens, indicating the update procedure.
When the update is completed, the Update Status icon changes back to the green Updated icon and
displays the new agent version.

A LEM agent upgrade does not require you to reboot the host computer.

Upgrade LEM agents for Windows using the LEM Console

If your console is connected to the Internet, you can update your LEM agents through the LEM console.

1. In the LEM console, click Manage and select Nodes.

2. Click Add Node and select Agent node.
3. Select the appropriate installation type.
Select Remote Installation to push LEM agents to Microsoft Windows hosts across your network.
Select Local Installation to log in to the device and install the LEM agent.
4. Copy the [Link] file to the local hard drive on the computer.

The security settings in some Windows operating systems require the installer to be on the
local hard drive prior to the launch.

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 5. Log in to the computer, right-click the installer, select Run as Administrator, and complete the
installation wizard.
When installing the upgrade on systems running Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 2012 R2,
include Windows 7 compatibility for the installation.

Upgrade LEM agents for Windows using an installer

If your console is not connected to the Internet, you can update your LEM agents by downloading the agent
installer from another computer with an Internet connection. Install your new LEM agents in the same
folder as your existing LEM agents. This process allows the installer to update the LEM agent software
while maintaining all other configuration settings.

1. Download the agent installer from the Additional Components page on the SolarWinds Customer
Portal.
2. Extract the ZIP file contents to your desktop or another location.
3. Copy the [Link] file to the local hard drive on the computer.

The security settings in some Windows operating systems require the installer to be on the
local hard drive prior to the launch.

4. Log in to the computer, right-click [Link], select Run as Administrator, and complete the
installation wizard.
When installing on Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 2012 R2, include Windows 7 compatibility
for the installation.
5. Run setup and complete the installation wizard.

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