You can schedule lite upgrades or full upgrades for certain NIOS versions. For limitations about scheduling a full upgrade, see Managing Upgrade Groups.

When you schedule an upgrade, you schedule the upgrade for the Grid Master and the upgrade groups, including the Default group. The Grid Master must always upgrade before the upgrade groups.

Depending on your upgrade paths, you can schedule the upgrade for the Grid Master and upgrade groups at different times over a period of nine days. If you schedule an upgrade that takes more than nine days, the appliance displays a warning.

To schedule an upgrade:

1. From the Grid tab, select the Upgrade tab, and then click Upgrade -> Schedule Upgrade from the Toolbar.

2. In the Upgrade Schedule editor, complete the following:

   • Activate Upgrade Schedule: Select this to enable the upgrade schedule. Clear it if you are creating an upgrade schedule that you plan to activate at a later date. You can configure and save information in this editor even when you deactivate a distribution.

   • Grid Master Upgrade Start Information: Enter a Grid Master upgrade date, time, and time zone. The date and time must be before those of the upgrade groups.

     • Date: Enter a start date of the Grid Master upgrade in YYYY-MM-DD format. You can click the calendar icon to select a date from the calendar widget.

     • Time: Enter a start time of the Grid Master upgrade in hh:mm:ss AM/PM format. You can select a time from the drop-down list.

     • Time Zone: Select a time zone that applies to the start time you enter. If this time zone is different from the Grid time zone, the appliance converts the time you enter here based on the Grid time zone, after you save this schedule. When you display this schedule again, it displays the converted time. Selecting the time zone here does not affect any time zone settings in the Grid. (For information about setting the Grid and member time zones, see Managing Time Settings.)

     • Admin Local Time: Displays the Grid Master upgrade date and start time in the time zone of the administrator, as explained in Creating Local Admins.

   • In the upgrade member table, specify the following by clicking the corresponding field in each row:

     • Group: The name of the upgrade group. You can assign a different upgrade group by selecting the group from the drop-down list.

     • Group Members: When you expand an upgrade group, this field displays the group members.

     • Warning: This field turns yellow when there is a conflict among the upgrade groups. Hover your mouse over the field and the tooltip displays the member that contains the conflict. It also displays recommended upgrade groups in the Group column so you can change the group assignment to resolve the conflict. The tooltip can display one of the following: GMC, DNS Primary, DHCP Logging Member, or DHCP Failover. For information about how to resolve a conflict, see Resolving Upgrade Warnings below. Select an upgrade group from the drop-down list in the Group column to assign a different upgrade group. Click Validate and Refresh to validate the new group assignment.

     • Start Upgrade: Specify when the upgrade occurs. Select one of the following from the drop-down list:

       • Date/Time: Select this to configure the upgrade start date, time, and time zone.

       • After <group> : Select After Grid Master to start the distribution immediately after the completion of the Grid Master distribution. Select an upgrade group that must complete its distribution before the group you are configuring. If you select this option, you cannot enter a date, time, and time zone.
         Date, Time, and Time Zone are enabled only when you select Date/Time for Start Upgrade.

     • Date: Enter an upgrade start date in the YYYY-MM-DD format. You can click the calendar icon to select a date from the calendar widget.

     • Time: Enter an upgrade start time in hh:mm:ss AM/PM format. You can select a time from the drop-down list.

     • Time Zone: By default, the appliance displays the time zone of the first Grid member in the Upgrade Group. You can change this time zone, if you want to enter the time using a different time zone. After you save the schedule though, the appliance converts the time you entered to the time zone of the upgrade group, if it is different. (For information about setting the Grid and member time zones, see Managing Time Settings.) To change the default time zone of an upgrade group, change the first group member in the Upgrade Group list, as explained in Adding Upgrade Groups, see Managing Upgrade Groups.

     • Admin Local Time: Displays the data and time in the time zone of the administrator, as explained in Creating Local Admins.

     • Upgrade Members: Indicates whether the upgrade within the group occurs simultaneously or sequentially. You cannot edit this field here. You define this when you create the upgrade group. To change this setting, see Managing Upgrade Groups.

3. Save the configuration.

The appliance does not save the schedule and displays an error message if the schedule contains the following:

• Circular dependencies between upgrade groups; for example, the upgrade of Group A is scheduled after Group B, and the upgrade of Group B is scheduled after Group A.

• The upgrade time is in the past.

The appliance also does not save the schedule and displays a warning when there is a group assignment conflict. Otherwise, the appliance confirms that the schedule is saved and indicates whether the upgrade schedule is active.

Upgrading Groups Immediately

After you schedule an upgrade with multiple upgrade groups, you can choose to immediately upgrade an upgrade group that has not been upgraded yet. This function is available only for scheduled upgrades.

To upgrade an upgrade group now:

1. From the Grid tab, select the Upgrade tab, and then click Toggle Group List View.

2. In the Group List view, click the Upgrade Group Now icon in the upgrade group row. Grid Manager immediately upgrades the selected group.

Upgrading a Single Member Immediately

After the Grid Master has been upgraded, you can choose to immediately upgrade a specific member that has not been upgraded yet. This function is available only for scheduled Grid upgrades. You can upgrade a single member only when the Grid upgrade is paused, and you cannot upgrade the Grid Master, reporting appliance, and an offline member. Once the member has been manually upgraded, the appliance skips this member when its scheduled upgrade time is reached.

To upgrade a specific member now:

1. From the Grid tab, select the Upgrade tab.

2. Pause the upgrade.

3. Click Toggle Member List View, and select the member checkbox from the table.

4. From the Toolbar, click Upgrade -> Upgrade Single Member. Grid Manager immediately upgrades the selected member.

Resolving Upgrade Warnings

The appliance can generate the following warnings when you schedule an upgrade:

• GMC: To resolve this warning, put all Grid Master candidates in the first upgrade group.

• DNS Primary: To resolve this warning, put all the members that are serving as DNS primaries in the first upgrade group.

• DHCP Logging Member: To resolve this warning, put the DHCP logging member in the first upgrade group.

• DHCP Failover: To resolve this warning, place the peers of a DHCP failover association in separate upgrade groups. Ensure that you schedule upgrades of the failover peers close to each other to minimize configuration rules. NIOS does not allow DHCP configuration changes that affect the communication between the peers until both peers are upgraded.