1. Complete Update

The update installation can be performed in a fully automatic manner without manual intervention. Therefore, this convenient update method is recommended if you can afford some downtime of the whole cluster. Typically, the update of a 16-node cluster takes about 30 minutes.

A complete update is also required in case of protocol incompatibilities between the installed version and the version to be installed. Such incompatibilities are rare and will be described in the release notes. If this is applies, a rolling update is not possible, but you will need to update the system completely in one operation. This will make PCI Express functionality unavailable for the duration of this update.

Proceed as follows to perform the complete update installation:

  1. Stop all applications using PCI Express on all Cluster Nodes. This step can be omitted if you choose the --reboot option below.

  2. Become superuser on the Cluster Management Node.

  3. Run the SIA on the Cluster Management Node with any combination of the following options:

    --install-all

    This is the default installation variant and will update all Cluster Nodes and the Cluster Management Node.

    You can specify --install-node or --install-frontend here to update only the current Cluster Node or the Cluster Management Node (you need to execute the SIA on the respective Cluster Node in these cases!)

    --batch

    Using this option, the script will run without any user interaction, assuming the default answers to all questions which would otherwise be posed to the user. This option can safely be used if no configuration changes are needed, and if you know that all services/applications using PCI Express are stopped on the Cluster Nodes.

    --reboot

    Rebooting the Cluster Nodes in the course of the installation will avoid any problems when loading the updated drivers. Such problems can occur because the drivers are currently in use, or due to resource problems. This option is recommended.

    --enforce

    By default, packages on a Cluster Node or the Cluster Management Node will only be updated if the new package has a more recent version than the installed package. This option will enforce the uninstallation of the installed package, followed by the installation of the new package. This option is recommended if you are unsure about the state of the installation.

    As an example, the complete, non-interactive and enforced installation of a specific driver version (provided via the SIA) with a reboot of all Cluster Nodes will be invoked as follows:

    # sh Dolphin_eXpressWare-<version>.sh --install-all --batch --reboot --enforce
  4. Wait for the SIA to complete. The updated Dolphin PCI Express services will be running on the Cluster Nodes and the Cluster Management Node.