Managing Mobile Controllers : Upgrading your software and verifying your software image
  
Upgrading your software and verifying your software image
You can upgrade or revert to a backup version of the software in the Administration > Maintenance: Software Upgrade page. You can also verify your software image.
The bottom of the page displays the software version history, which includes the version number and the software installation date.
Verifying your software image
Before you install a software upgrade, you can verify the integrity and authenticity of the software image and ensure it is an unmodified and approved Riverbed image. The feature requires a public key in a certificate to verify the digital signature of the software image. The certificate is automatically installed on the Mobile Controller, but you can import an updated version, if needed.
You can download the public key for Riverbed images from KB article S33657.
During the verification process, the appliance compares the signature in the image with the Riverbed public certificate. If they match, the installation continues. If not, the system alerts you to a potential problem. As long as image signature verification is enabled, you cannot continue with an installation that cannot verify the image signature.
By default, image signature verification is on and should be disabled only when necessary. Riverbed recommends keeping the feature enabled at all times.
To enable software image verification
1. Choose Administration > Maintenance: Software Upgrade to display the Software Upgrade page.
2. Under Image Signature Verification, select Image Signature Verification.
If you clear the Image Signing Verification check box, you disable this feature and a warning message appears indicating images will not be verified.
3. Expand the Image Signing Certificate section and ensure the appliance has a valid certificate.
You can use the certificate that is installed by default or you can click the Import tab to replace an expired or revoked certificate. You can upload a PKCS-12, PEM, or DER format certificate or paste a PEM certificate. Click Import Image Signing Certificate to add the certificate to this appliance.
You can only use one certificate. The certificate information appears in the Details tab.
4. Click Apply.
5. Click Save to Disk to save your settings permanently.
Upgrading or reverting your software version
You can upgrade your software or revert to a backup version.
To upgrade software version
1. Choose Administration > Maintenance: Software Upgrade to display the Software Upgrade page.
2. Under Install Upgrade, complete the configuration as described in this table.
Control
Description
From URL
Select this option and specify the URL.
Use one of these formats:
http://host/path/to/file
https://host/path/to/file
ftp://user:password@host/path/to/file
scp://user:password@host/path/to/file
From Riverbed Support Site
Select this option and then select the target release number from the drop-down list. The system uploads and installs the new image immediately after you click Install. To upload and install the image later, schedule another date or time before you click Install.
Optionally, in SteelCentral 5.5 and later, you can download a delta image directly from the Riverbed Support site to the SteelHead appliance. The downloaded image includes only the incremental changes. The smaller file size means a faster download and less load on the network.
From Local File
Select this option and specify the path, or click Browse to go to the local file directory.
If you specify a file to upload in the Local File text box, the image is uploaded immediately; however the image is installed and the system is rebooted at the time you specify.
Schedule Upgrade for Later
Schedules the upgrade process. Specify the date and time to run the upgrade: yyyy/mm/dd, hh:mm:ss.
Install
Click to install the software upgrade on your system, unless you schedule it for later.
The software image can be quite large; uploading the image to the appliance and installing it can take a few minutes. Downloading a delta image directly from the Riverbed Support site is faster because the downloaded image includes only the incremental changes.
As the upgrade progresses, status messages appear.
After the installation is complete, the system reminds you to reboot the appliance to switch to the new version of the software.
Cancel
Cancels your changes.
3. Reboot the Mobile Controller. For details, see Rebooting and shutting down the Mobile Controller.
The appliance can take a few minutes to reboot. This behavior is normal because the software is configuring the recovery flash device. Do not press Ctrl+C, unplug, or otherwise shut down the system during this first boot. There is no indication displayed during the system boot that the recovery flash device is being configured.
After the reboot, the Software Upgrade and Help pages in the Management Console display the RiOS version upgrade.
To revert software version
1. Choose Administration > Maintenance: Software Upgrade to display the Software Upgrade page.
2. Under Software Upgrade, complete the configuration as described in this table.
Control
Description
Switch to Backup Version
Switches to the backup version on the next reboot.
Cancel Version Switch
Cancels the software version switch on the next reboot.
Related Topic
Configuring scheduled jobs