Upgrading Maestro Environment - Zero Downtime

Warning - Multi-Version Cluster (Zero Downtime) upgrade from R81 / R81.10 to R81.20 is not supported if a Security Group has Bond interfaces in the 802.3ad (LACP) mode on Uplink ports (Known Limitation PMTR-88191).

Important - See these rollback procedures:

• Rolling Back a Failed Upgrade of a Maestro Orchestrator

• Rolling Back a Failed Upgrade of a Security Group - After Partial Upgrade

• Rolling Back a Failed Upgrade of a Security Group - Zero Downtime

• Rolling Back a Failed Upgrade of a Security Group - Minimum Downtime.

Important Notes for Quantum Maestro Orchestrators:

• We recommend to schedule a maintenance window for all Orchestrators on all sites.

• The major software version on the Orchestrators must be equal to or higher than the major software version on the managed Security Group (PMTR-86785).

• This procedure keeps the current configuration on the Orchestrators.

• Upgrade all Orchestrators and only then upgrade the Security Groups.

• Upgrade one Orchestrator at a time.

• In a Dual Site environment:

  Procedure

  1. Upgrade the Orchestrators on the Standby Site (Site 2)

  2. Initiate a fail-over in each Security Group from the non-upgraded Active Site (Site 1) to the upgraded Standby Site (Site 2):

     1. Connect to the command line on each Security Group.

     2. If your default shell is Gaia gClish, then go to the Expert mode:

        expert

     3. Initiate a fail-over:

        chassis_admin -c <ID of Active Site> down

        chassis_admin -c <ID of Former Active Site> up

  3. Upgrade the Orchestrators on the new Standby Site (Site 1).

Important Notes for Security Groups:

• Before you upgrade the Security Groups, you must upgrade the Management Server that manages the Security Groups.

  See the R81.20 Installation and Upgrade Guide.

• This procedure applies to Security Groups in the Gateway mode and the VSX mode.

  In VSX mode, you must run all the commands in the context of VS0.

• During the upgrade process, it is:

  • Forbidden to install policy on the Security Group, unless the upgrade procedure explicitly shows how to do it.

  • Forbidden to reboot Security Group Members, unless the upgrade procedure explicitly shows how to do it.

  • Forbidden to change the configuration of the Security Group and its Security Group Members.

  • Forbidden to install Hotfixes on the Security Group Members, unless Check Point Support or R&D explicitly instructs you to do so.

  • Forbidden to install the Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator on the Security Group Members, unless Check Point Support or R&D explicitly instructs you to do so.

• To prevent down time, do not upgrade all the Security Group Members in a specific Security Group at the same time.

• In this upgrade procedure, you divide all Security Group Members in a specific Security Group into two or more logical groups.

  In the procedure below, we use two logical groups denoted below as "A" and "B".

  You upgrade one logical group of the Security Group Members at one time.

  The other logical group(s) of the Security Group Members continues to handle traffic.

  Each logical group should contain the same number of Security Group Members - as close as possible.

  Examples

  Environment	Description
  Single Site	There are 8 Security Group Members in the Security Group. The Logical Group "A" contains Security Group Members from 1_1 to 1_4. The Logical Group "B" contains Security Group Members from 1_5 to 1_8.
  Single Site	There are 5 Security Group Members in the Security Group. The Logical Group "A" contains Security Group Members from 1_1 to 1_3. The Logical Group "B" contains Security Group Members from 1_4 to 1_5.
  Dual Site	There are 4 Security Group Members in the Security Group (on each Site). The Logical Group "A" contains Security Group Members on Site 1 from 1_1 to 1_4. The Logical Group "B" contains Security Group Members on Site 2 from 2_1 to 2_4.

• In a Dual Site environment:

  • We recommend to upgrade all Security Group Members in each Security Group on one Site, and then upgrade all Security Group Members in the same Security Group on the next Site.

    Do this on one Security Group at a time.

  • To prevent a fail-over between Sites during the upgrade, we recommend these steps for each Security Group:

    Procedure

    1. Connect to the command line on a Security Group.

    2. If your default shell is the Expert mode, then go to Gaia gClish:

       gclish

    3. Get the current Dual Site Active/Standby mode:

       show chassis high-availability mode

       Available Modes:

       Mode ID	Mode Title	Mode Description
       0	Active/Standby - Active Up	No primary Site. The currently Active Site stays Active unless it goes DOWN, or the Standby Site has a higher Site quality grade.
       1	Active/Standby - Primary Up	Active Site, always stays Active unless it goes DOWN, or the Standby Site has a higher Site quality grade.
       2	Not available	Not supported.
       3	Standby Chassis VSLS Mode	In VSX, provides Virtual System Load Sharing.

    4. Decide which of the Sites is Active.

    5. Change the Dual Site Active/Standby mode to "Active/Standby - Primary Up":

       set chassis high-availability mode 1

    6. Change the Site Priority (enter the number of the currently Active Site):

       set chassis high-availability vs chassis_priority {1 | 2}

    7. Upgrade all Security Group Members on the "Standby" Site.

    8. On the upgraded Site, change the Dual Site Active/Standby mode to "Primary Up":

       set chassis high-availability mode 1

    9. On the upgraded Site, change the Site Priority (enter the number of the currently Active Site):

       set chassis high-availability vs chassis_priority {1 | 2}

    10. Upgrade all Security Group Members on the new "Standby" Site (former "Active" Site).

    11. Change the Dual Site Active/Standby mode to the previous mode:

        set chassis high-availability mode <Mode ID>