Geneos Upgrade Notes

Overview

This document provides information about the product changes that can affect upgrading from one version of Geneos to another.

To learn more about the supported Geneos versions and new features in the Geneos 5.x release, see the following documents:

Upgrade to Geneos 5.6.x

New binary file name for Geneos third-party plugins

The binary file naming convention in ITRS Downloads has been changed from <plugin><version>.tar.gz to <plugin>-<version>.tar.gz. This change applies beginning Geneos 5.6.1.

New ITRS Maven repository

The ITRS Maven repository has changed its location from <url>https://itrsgroup.bintray.com/collection</url> to <url>https://maven.itrsgroup.com/repository/public</url>. Please update all the existing links as they will stop working by end of February 2021.

New workspace directory in Active Console

Beginning Geneos 5.6.x, Active Console now sets the new workspace default directory to the following paths:

  • On Windows: ~\ITRS\ActiveConsole

  • On macOS and Linux: ~/ITRS/ActiveConsole/

The new default workspace directory is used when creating a new workspace, but all existing workspaces are not affected. For more information, see Workspace directory in Active Console.

Upgrade to Geneos 5.5.x

New binary file name for Geneos components

As part of the improvements to automate our deployment process, the binary file naming convention in ITRS Downloads has been changed from geneos-<component>-<version>.<os>.tar.gz to geneos-<component>-<version>-<os>.tar.gz. This change applies beginning Geneos 5.5.x.

Upgrade to Geneos 5.4.x

Self-monitoring in Geneos

Beginning Geneos 5.4.x, self-monitoring in Geneos is now enabled by default with no configuration required.

This results in an Entity being dynamically created called <gateway_name> Info which contains samplers and dataviews that are automatically enabled with no configuration required. These samplers and dataviews are created using the existing Gateway plugins which you may already have manually configured in your Gateways.

If you do not wish the Gateway to automatically create a self-monitoring Entity, you can disable this feature in the Gateway > Operating environment section.

For more information, see operatingEnvironment > selfMonitoring in Gateway Operating Environment documentation.

E4JMS plugin

Beginning Geneos 5.4.x, the E4JMS plugin supports SSL client authentication. This feature introduces breaking changes to the E4JMS plugin SSL implementation for older Geneos versions.

If you are using SSL connections on your E4JMS plugins, you must update your configuration when using the new schema.

For more information, see E4JMS Plugin Technical Reference.

File Keyword Monitor plugin

Beginning Geneos 5.4.x, the FKM plugin uses Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) by default. Be aware that this may introduce breaking changes in your implementation.

For more information, see the following documentation in the File Keyword Monitor:

Upgrade to Geneos 5.2.x

State Tracker plugin

The State Tracker > Rewind option in Gateway Setup Editor is now disabled by default.

For more information, see trackerGroup > trackers > tracker > rewind in State Tracker Technical Reference.

If you enable this option, this may cause a sudden increase in your CPU usage with no known changes in the monitored file. Since the State Tracker will track the monitored file from the beginning, and not when the file grows for new events.

Dynamic Entities

Gateway, Netprobe, and Licence Daemon have each been updated to support licensing of Collection Agent plugins. All three of these components must be updated to Geneos 5.2.x or higher for the Dynamic Entities feature to be supported in Gateway.

Collection Agent plugins require an additional licence to use. Please contact your ITRS Account Manager or ITRS Sales.

Gateway and Licence Daemon

If you are upgrading to Gateway 5.2.x or higher, you should also upgrade Licence Daemon to version 5.2.x or higher.

StatsD Plugin

The StatsD configuration in the packaged Collection Agent (collection-agent.yml) now uses the default protocol UDP and port 8125. Previously, this was set to protocol TCP and port 7780.

Upgrade to Geneos 5.0.x

Important

  • The ITRS Maven repository has changed its location from <url>https://itrsgroup.bintray.com/collection</url> to <url>https://maven.itrsgroup.com/repository/public</url>. Please update all the existing links as they will stop working by end of February 2021.
  • Netprobe 5.1.x is not generally available to download except for Netprobe 5.1.0 Linux-64 package certified for deployment on Solace devices. Please download version 5.2.x or newer for all other deployments.
  • Support for Geneos 3.x ended on 30 April 2020. We strongly advise you to upgrade to version 4.x or newer as soon as possible.
  • From the release of Geneos 5.0.x, there will be no interoperability with other Geneos components older than version 3.6.x. In order to successfully deploy or upgrade to Geneos 5.0.x in a staged manner, you must first ensure that no other connecting Geneos components are older than version 3.6.x. This change is a result of the removal of LZO compression support in the inter-component EMF2 communication protocol.
  • Collection Agent plugins require an additional licence to use. Please contact your ITRS Account Manager or ITRS Sales.

If you have any question or concerns, please contact ITRS Support.

Netprobe

The Hardware plug-in now uses a new method of obtaining memoryAvailable and memoryAvailablePct for Linux platforms. The metrics are now based on the same calculation Linux uses to calculate the memAvailable field in /proc/meminfo. For more information, see the Hardware Plug-in documentation.

Ensure that any affected Gateway rules and thresholds are reviewed.

Gateway

Gateway 5.0 cannot publish data to Gateway Hub 1.4 or older versions. This is due to the changes in the publishing format in order to improve performance.

Gateway Setup Editor now enables the Simplified Comments by default. With simplifiedComments enabled, GSE removes all icons that indicate comments. You can only add, edit, or remove comments on named components in the Navigation panel.

The API for centralised configuration has changed since Early Access. Upgrade to Gateway 5.0 to use the centralised configuration with Gateway Hub 1.6 and above. For more information, see Centralised Gateways User Guide.

Active Console

Active Console 5.0 now supports a new light theme user interface. The Look and Feel in the Advanced settings has been removed.

Platforms and settings changes

Beginning with version 5.0, these Gateway settings are deprecated:

  • Managed Entity > Banner (Advanced tab)
  • Sampler > Publish (Visibility tab)

Changes to default Gateway configuration in version 5.0:

  • DatabaseLogging > logNetprobeSampleTimeForDataItems default is now True. 
  • Actions > action > sharedLibrary > runThreaded default is now True.
  • Effects > effect > sharedLibrary > runThreaded default is now True.

Upgrade to Geneos 4.11.x

In the Gateway, the behaviour of the _COMMENT environment variable has changed for actions fired by the unassignment of a data item. Previously, the comment provided when the item was assigned was placed in the _COMMENT environment variable for both assignment and unassignment events. It is now possible to configure Gateways to require comments for both assignment and unassignment events. This means for actions fired by unassignment events, the comment provided when the item is unassigned is placed in the _COMMENT environment variable. The comment that was provided when the item was originally assigned is now moved to a new environment variable called _PREVIOUS_COMMENT.

Improved the Context Sensitive Help (CSH) for Gateway Setup Editor (Gateway Setup Editor) that is based on the specific content available online. Context sensitive help will launch your default browser to access the content online. To know more about this, see Host the documentation locally to use GSE context-sensitive help in Gateway Setup Editor.

Upgrade to Geneos 4.7.x

Geneos 4.7.x release introduces changes to the way arguments are parsed to Commands, Actions, and Effects.

These changes were required to provide consistent behaviour and understanding across both Netprobe and Gateway to simplify user experience.

We strongly recommend you check the configuration and behaviour of any Commands, Actions, and Effects before deploying to production.

For more information, see Commands, Actions and Effects.

Upgrade to Geneos 4.0.x

The following changes are introduced to Geneos 4.0.x packages:

  • Name of the package file is geneos-<component>-<version>.<platform>.<tar.gz/zip>. 
    • For example, geneos-netprobe-4.0.0.solaris-x64.tar.gz.
  • Packages contains a root directory <component>.
  • Libraries are located within a sub-directory named lib or lib64: