Upgrading the Primary EPM on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server

About this task

Perform the following steps to upgrade the Primary EPM server that uses the customer-provided Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server.

Before you begin

Verify that the prerequisites have been met. For more information, see Prerequisites checklist for upgrading Experience Portal.

Procedure

Create a backup of the Experience Portal system.

Save the backup folder to an external server that is not part of the Experience Portal system. For more information, see Backing up data.

Important:

Experience Portal currently supports RHEL 7.x 64-bit and RHEL 8.x 64-bit OS versions.

If you are using RHEL 7.8 64-bit or newer 7.x update, or RHEL 8.2 64-bit or newer update, you do not need to perform an OS upgrade.

If you upgrade to Experience Portal 8.1 from Experience Portal 6.x or 7.x, you must do a fresh installation of a supported version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server.

For more information, see Upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server on the dedicated EPM server.
If you upgrade to Experience Portal 8.1 from Experience Portal 6.x or 7.x, you must stage the database backup and configuration files on the fresh installation RHEL server.

For more information on database backup and configuration files, see Backing up data.
1. Rename the vp_backupaa backup file to vp_upgrade.export and copy the file to /var/lib/pgsql/vp_upgrade.export.
2. Copy the version.xml file to /opt/Avaya/InstallAgent/config/version.xml.
  
  Create the directory if it does not already exist. For example, mkdir -p /opt/Avaya/InstallAgent/config/.
3. Rename the voiceportal_info.jsp to voiceportal_info.php and copy to /var/www/html/voiceportal_info.php.
  
  Create the directory if it does not already exist. For example, mkdir -p /var/www/html/.
4. Copy the PG_VERSION file to /var/lib/pgsql/data/PG_VERSION.
  
  Create the directory if it does not already exist. For example, mkdir -p / var/lib/pgsql/data/.
Disable the firewall on the Experience Portal server.
Configure a yum repository that has required Experience Portal packages

Install the Avaya Experience Portal 8.1 Primary EPM software.

For more information, see Prerequisites checklist for upgrading Experience Portal and Upgrading the Primary EPM software interactively.

Important:

Use the interactive upgrade method by running the aepinstall script.

Ensure that you assign the same host name and IP address to the server before the upgrade.

If you are upgrading from Avaya Experience Portal 6.x or 7.x, do the following to establish whether a new EP Signing Certificate needs to be generated:

In the EPM web interface, navigate to Security > Certificates > EP Signing Certificate > Certificate.
Inspect the Security Certificate > Basic Constraints > CA entry.
If the CA entry is set to false, do the following:
- Create a new EP Signing Certificate by navigating to the Security > Certificates > EP Signing Certificate > Certificate and clicking Generate .
- Initiate a manual reboot of EPM by using SSH on the EPM server and initiating a reboot via the Linux command line.
- Delete the MPP server and add the MPP server back again, using the same name and IP. Then, click Trust new certificate.
- Click Save.

Note:

This step is required only if the EP Signing Certificate is enabled. For customers with EP Signing Certificate (custom identity certificates) disabled, this step is not required.

The EP Signing Certificate can be generated on the Experience Portal server or it can be issued by an external Certificate Authority (CA) and uploaded to the Experience Portal server. If it is issued by an external CA, then customers need to request a new EP Signing Certificate from the external CA that has Basic Constraints with a CA value set to true.

Run the setup_vpms.php script on each MPP server to authorize the new security certificate on the Primary EPM and to allow the MPPs to communicate with it.
In the System Monitor page, if it shows that the MPP needs to be restarted, restart the MPP from the MPP Manager page.

Note:

If your Auxiliary EPM has outcalls in progress, skip the following step.
Re-establish the communication link between the upgraded EPM and the Auxiliary EPM servers:
1. Log in to Linux on each Auxiliary EPM server.
2. Run the setup_vpms.php script.
3. Log in to the EPM web interface.
4. On the EPM navigation pane, click EPM Servers.
5. Click the EPM server that you have upgraded.
  
  The system displays the Change EPM Server page.
6. Click Trust new certificate.
7. Click Save.

	Note:
	If your Auxiliary EPM has outcalls in progress, skip the following step.