Upgrading JSS to 9.6 experiences

bmak
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Everyone,

Now that Yosemite is out and JAMF have released version 9.6 of the Casper Suite.
We are currently using version 9.32 on a virtualised REHL 6.5 server and will need to upgrade to 9.6 soonish.
I wanted to ask what everyones experiences were with upgrading there JSS Servers to version 9.6
What version of JSS were you upgrading from?
How long did it take?
Was there anything nonstandard that you had to do to prepare for the upgrade?

I'm also keen on hearing experiences from people who are supporting JSS in a clustered environment.
How are you guys approaching the upgrade?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Berry Mak

18 REPLIES 18

emilh
New Contributor III

Upgraded our JSS to 9.6 (Linux) and now I get a version mismatch in Casper Admin (9.6).
Maybe something wrong with the Linux JSS installer?

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calum_oac
New Contributor

@emilh][/url, are you running the latest version of the Casper Admin app as well? Do you have the same problem on a 10.9 machine?

@maktime][/url perhaps it would be beneficial to spin up a new test vm environment to mirror your production setup. install the same version of the JSS as your prod, then import your latest prod backup to your test environment. Once thats operational. test the upgrade and make sure everything is working ok.

I'd also be looking through the change log of the casper suite, to see whats been fixed and known issues from 9.32 to 9.6 (theres a LOT) to see if any of them affect you.

esmedberg
New Contributor

Post deleted.

emilh
New Contributor III

@calum_oac][/url Yeah, as you can see from the screenshot I was running Casper Admin 9.6.
After contacting JAMF support I noticed that the JSS didn't report a version number in the web interface either, so I reran the installer. Two times. It seems like the third time really is the charm and after that the JSS started reporting itself as running version 9.6 and now everything seems to run properly.

bmak
Contributor
Contributor

@emih What version of JSS are you upgrading from? Wow 3rd time is the charm eh.

@calum_oac - Yup that's exactly what I did and it's currently stuck during the upgrade process. So am wondering if other's are experiencing issues with the upgrade. I also went through the release notes of 9.6 and yes there's a few things on the defects list.

I'm wondering if it's worth while to upgrade to 9.4 or 9.5 before upgrading to 9.6

I'll let you guys know how it goes I've left the upgrade going in my test environment.

Thanks again guys.

emilh
New Contributor III

@maktime 9.52 on Ubuntu Linux Server 14.04.

phillip_chen
New Contributor

oops

tomt
Valued Contributor

One thing to note if you have any 10.6 client machines. The Self Service app in 9.6 will not run on Snow Leopard machines. I had saved a copy of Self Service from my 9.32 install and that seems to work just fine on 10.6 systems.

donmontalvo
Esteemed Contributor III

9.32>9.61 found a glitch with Restricted Software.

We restrict access to Terminal.app, however our group (IT) is allowed to launch. After upgrading to 9.61, each of us got bounced out of Terminal.app:

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Relaunch Terminal.app and all is fine.

Run sudo jamf manage, and now we get the dialog box every 5 minutes.

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Anyone seeing this?

UPDATE: Looks like we lost our exempted LDAP user list in Restricted Software. Terminal.app was set to restrict on All Computers, and exempt by user...the scope for the Terminal.app Restricted Software item doesn't show the list.
TIA,
Don

--
https://donmontalvo.com

bmak
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the update @donmontavio

I use the restricted software as well I'll keep an eye on the exclusions as well.

Chris_Hafner
Valued Contributor II

... ewww. Just to follow up on that. Our 'exclusions' list remained. We're fortunate, or just dumb enough to fast track JSS upgrades on a priority basis. Therefore, we almost never have to jump versions. For better or worse we were OK on this one.

To clarify that was 9.52 to 9.6 and then on to 9.61. However, I do tend to scour MySQL records for corruption. Anytime I have something tweak out on me I can almost always find it there. I thank @amanda.wulff for pointing me in this direction long ago!

bmak
Contributor
Contributor

We have also successfully upgraded our Production Environment in a incremental staged upgrade process
Going from version 9.32 > 9.4 then finally 9.61

And yes in between each upgrade I did UAT as well as running checks and analysing the DB just to ensure there was no corruption or errors.

And yes definitely thanks to @amanda.wulff on providing her own set of notes in my previous thread.

I hope everyone else has had success in upgrading there own servers.

donmontalvo
Esteemed Contributor III

@donmontalvo wrote:

UPDATE: Looks like we lost our user exclusions in Restricted Software. Terminal.app was set to restrict on All Computers, and exempt by user...the scope for the Terminal.app Restricted Software item doesn't show our list of exempted users anymore.

UPDATE: Looks like the missing LDAP user exemptions for Restricted Software is a known issue (D-007418) that should be fixed in 9.62.

Kudos to Travis for confirming on Sunday night, above and beyond!

Don

--
https://donmontalvo.com

davidhiggs
Contributor III

@maktime good work, now go enjoy a nice cold beer :)

bmak
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks @davidhiggs I think I need a stiffer drink then cold beers man!

bmak
Contributor
Contributor

After upgrading the JSS to 9.61 we ran into an issue with MDM capability not function after enrolling a workstation using the quickadd package or Recon. This turned out to be a Defect

Defect (D-007838)
Description

Actual Results:

- QuickAdd package fails to install. MDM errors are found in the jamf.log on the client and in the JAMFSoftwareServer.log

Error installing the computer level mdm profile: profiles install for file:'/Library/Application Support/JAMF/tmp/mdm.mobileconfig' and user:'(null)' returned -915 (Unable to contact the SCEP server
Workstation is enrolled but the installer displays a error message

Just wanted to thank @adam.sippl for working through this with me and providing the work around of recreating the Tomcat Cert and restarting the Tomcat Service. After re-enrolling the affected workstation into the JSS it reported that MDM capability was back to normal.

Thanks @adam.sippl

barnesaw
Contributor III

Updated my OS X server to 9.61. VM usage is pits, the server practically locks up.

Inactive memory maxes out and doesn't release.

Workaround for me is to run purge with a LaunchDaemon every 5 minutes. Currently purging between 3GB and 10GB every 5 minutes.

Might be time to investigate an OS migration.

bmak
Contributor
Contributor

@barnesaw buggah!

I'd recommend going to RHEL Server, we went that route and have never looked back!