Setting up a JSS 9.2 test server before going production

[bountyman]

Hello JAMF nation!!

We are planning the upgrade to v9.2 in two weeks and just upgraded to 8.73. We obviously need to set up a testing machine. I installed debian 64bit 7.1.0 on a VM and ran the automatic Linux installer.

The installation went quite well and I ended up with a JSS 9.2 up and running.

I stopped Tomcat and restored our latest 8.73 SQL dump (mysql -u jamfsoftware -pjamfsw03 jamfsoftware < 2013-10-23_22-42-00.sql.gz)
I rebooted and logged in to https://TestJSS:8443

Even though the database was restored, it went through the installation setup process:

- Company name
- Serial
- User account
- URL

The only thing I have next is a blank page. I repeated the steps several times but no luck.

What am I missing here ?

Any ideas ?

[mpermann]

Did you install 8.7.3 in the test VM, restore your database to the test VM then run the upgrade to 9.2 on the test VM? I vaguely remember at one of the JNUC sessions the presenter stating that you need to restore the database to the 8.7.x version first then do the upgrade to 9.x otherwise the database will not be upgraded correctly. I am not sure if this is what your experiencing or not. Maybe some others that have already done this will chime in. I haven't personally had a chance to do this yet but will soon as we need to upgrade to 9.2 as well from 8.7.3

[bountyman]

Well, I went straight to version 9.2. At first my gut feeling wanted to install 8.7.3 then do the upgrade to really replicate our production setup. Not sure yet if it's going to make a difference but I'll let you know tomorrow.
Thank you.

[mpermann]

Sounds good. I'm interested in how it goes especially since I'll be needing to do it myself soon. Thanks.

[burnettb]

I'm in the same boat. I need to create a test environment myself so I would like to know too. Thanks for sharing!

[burnettb]

I'm in the same boat. I need to create a test environment myself so I would like to know too. Thanks for sharing!

[donmontalvo]

Are you able to change the hostname/URL on the 9.2 box, after the database was imported?

We've been testing by bringing our 8.7 database straight into 9.x, no issue with database.

[Edit] Well I do remember that with 9.0 we had to drop the jamfsoftware database before bringing in the backup.

[ernstcs]

I've never just dumped an older version database straight into a newer version of the JSS. The thought alone of doing that sounds wrong.

We've always installed the same version of the JSS as the backup we are restoring and THEN we would upgrade to the latest release to ensure that the installer has made all the proper adjustments to the jamfsoftware database.

Although it may run just dumping an 8.7x into the 9.2, I'm guessing somewhere down the line you're going to find something broken. Even little things like making a particular field hold a longer value, etc.

[bountyman]

I haven't tried to change the hostname on the 9.2 test box. I did drop the jamsoftware database before importing the dump.
I'm starting over with a fresh 8.73 now, will import our production database, test and document everything. Next, upgrade to 9.2
I keep things simple here: in our production setup, we have a dedicated debian VM for JSS 8.73 and another debian VM for MySql. For the testing process, I just run the automatic Linux installer.
Will keep you posted.
Thanks everyone.

[bountyman]

OK, I started with a fresh Debian and JSS 8.73 install and imported our DB dump. I logged into my test 8.73 and No problem there.

Next I stopped tomcat7 and ran the automatic installer for 9.2.

So now, Tomcat is up and 9.2 is supposedly the current JSS version...but when I type my trusted lsof -i | grep 8443

Nothing ! Tomcat is not listening for connections. A quick look at server.xml (now located in /usr/local/jss/tomcat/conf) shows that port 8443 is indeed configured in the config file.
So, yeah.. I'm still looking.

[mpermann]

I read on this thread https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=8748 that you're not supposed to stop Tomcat before doing the upgrade. I know that seems strange but that's what it said. You may want to give it another shot with Tomcat running to see if it works for you.

[Andrina]

Having just gone through this - any chance you have a keystore on your master server for an externally signed cert from a CA? I had to copy over my keystore before tomcat would start successfully....

[bountyman]

@Andrina,
We are not using a signed cert from outside, just using our own. But for some reason, I think Tomcat not listening on 8443 is CA related. Time to investigate. Thank you Andrina, and by the way, your presentation at JNUC was the most entertaining of all.

[Andrina]

yeah, even if you're using your own you may have that keystore there. I just scp'd mine over once the 9.2 installer ran, did a stop/start of Tomcat and was off to the races...

[bountyman]

Our test JSS9.2 is running on a different IP, different URL. My guess is the keystore from our production server would not work after I import it to the test JSS9.2. Am I right ?

[bountyman]

I couldn't find the .keystore once I upgraded to 9.2 so I used the one from 8.73, restarted Tomcat and voila, I had 8443 listening:
I logged in to https://test92:8443 and again it went through the setup install wizard even though I am using our production DB.
I end up with a blank page and still stuck.

[DavidSu]

Hi @bountyman

If you had a 9.2 environment running, you will need to drop/recreate the jamfsoftware database prior to doing the restore of your 8.7 backup. This is because some of the new 9.x tables will still exist in the database after the restore, and will actually cause some of the upgrade steps to be skipped.

Also, is your production JSS clustered? If so, you'll probably need disable clustering prior to doing the upgrade. In a clustered environment, only the master can perform database upgrades, so if your test server isn't detected as the master, those updates won't actually happen.

Hope this helps!

[bountyman · Accepted solution]

I did a manual install at the end, the config files being where they have always been: /var/lib/tomcat7/
I don't know how I ended up having them on /usr/local/jss instead. Something must have gone wrong.
After I had my 9.2 up and running, I made an extra Distribution Point on a Debian VM for testing, just to play safe. It's running on our latest production DB dump and I allocated 4 GB to Tomcat7.
Thank you.