Upgrading on Linux

Owned by Florian Lahr (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 14, 2016 by Christian Sprajc

This guide describes how to upgrade PowerFolder Server on Linux based operating systems.

1. Before you start

Some points to note:

  1. Please check the minimum requirements, which are necessary to install and run PowerFolder Server. Further details can be read on the Server System Requirements page.
  2. Read the Server Release Notes to check if there are any special requirements in the release which should be upgraded to.
Overview:

 

2. Updating the program files

Updating PowerFolder Server is straightforward:

  1. Download the .tar.gz distribution for Linux based servers from our download site.
  2. Open the PowerFolder-Server.sh file in the installation directory and note the values which you might have changed there (most probably SERVER_INSTALL, SERVER_HOME or JAVA_MEM) during installation or previous updates.
  3. Stop PowerFolder Server using the PowerFolder-Server.sh file.
  4. Extract the PowerFolder-Server-Latest.tar.gz file to the current installation directory, overwriting the existing files.
    (info) Open the PowerFolder-Server.sh startup script and insert the changes you have noted in the second step of this manual.
  5. Start PowerFolder Server using the PowerFolder-Server.sh file.
  6. All necessary update procedures will automatically take place in the background.
    (tick) After the successful update the web interface should be available again at the known URL.

 

Using different update strategies

The steps described below will update the program files by overwriting the previous installation. Some administrators however like to move the existing installation to a backup directory, extract the tarball to the previous location and run that instead. You can also go with that procedure, however please take care of the the following things:

  • External database users: Make sure you still have the /libs sub-directory with the database driver in it residing in the directory with the PowerFolder-Server.sh and PowerFolder-Server.jar files, otherwise the server will fail to start because of the missing database driver. If the database driver is missing a typical log messages looks like this: "APPARENT DEADLOCK!!! Creating emergency threads for unassigned pending tasks!" und "java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver"
  • Startup script changes: Please adapt all changes you did to the previous PowerFolder-Server.sh startup script (most likely SERVER_INSTALL, SERVER_HOME or JAVA_MEM) also to the one extracted from the new package.