Recap: You are a customer with up to date Sideview Support – either on a full version or a trial version. You are here to either a) update your production build to the latest maintenance release. b) upgrade from the trial version to the full version, or c) update your trial version with a newer trial version. Also, you’ve also reviewed the Release Notes, Admin Manual, made backups, etc…. In all cases it’s recommended to update the apps with the license update, and since that process is simple and fast we recommend following all steps below. Of course, if you JUST updated the app and now just need a license update, feel free to skip right to section two to do that. 1) Updating the appsVersion 5.0 and newer are all now hosted directly on Splunkbase. This means you can use any of several methods to update that Splunk has “Built in”. We’ll outline a recommended way below, but know that there are other ways to do this. The key being that it’s just a “regular Splunk app update” now and the only different thing from most apps is you need to have your license key handy. Also note – you can move directly from 4.x to 5.x using any of these methods too – just be sure to have your license key at the ready!
2) Updating the license (if needed)Trial Version to Full Version, Extending your Trial, or Renewing Full VersionThe directions to update your license is greatly simplified since version 5.0. If you are still on a version before 5.0, please update your app to the latest (the directions above) then come back here.
An alternative if you don’t have UI access (or are already sitting in an ssh session with the server) –
3) Updating forwarders, if anyThere are a couple of sections here, depending on what version of forwarder you have installed. First, a word for more experienced Splunk AdminsThe TA_cisco_cdr, as found on Splunkbase, is just a Splunk app like any other. If you already know how to deploy an app in your environment and onto the system that needs this app, then use that method. (Puppet, Splunk Deployment Server, manual process but at least we *have* a process, etc…) Do keep in mind that you don’t want overwrite your inputs.conf! If you followed our installation instructions, they have you edit a TA_cisco_cdr/local/inputs.conf file. If you did this your input file is fine and will not be overwritten. If you edited the TA_cisco_cdr/default/inputs.conf file instead, you should first migrate those settings to the local version of the file. As a final note for those of you who know what you are doing, if your company/Splunk admins already have a convention for deploying inputs (like creating/using an app just for the inputs for this like “TA_cisco_cdr_inputs”), then please work with them to use that convention – we heartily approve of these sorts of standards! Heavy ForwardersThis was only ever the recommended way to handle the inputs if you already had an HF deployed for some other reason and were going to reuse it for the Cisco CDR inputs as well. If you do have an HF doing your inputs, then one possibility would be to install/update the TA by using the “Manage Apps” method we outline above for updating the app as a whole. Just log into the web interface on the HF, go to Manage Apps and click the update buttons. If this process fails, if the web interface for Splunk is disabled, or if you just want to stay consistent you could also treat it exactly like it’s a Universal Forwarder (below). Universal Forwarders (and everyone else)The TA has been repackaged and you can now download it directly from Splunkbase. Either use the link provided, or open Splunkbase and search for it by searching for “sideview ta”. In either case, locate it on Splunkbase and click the “Download” button.
Deploy this TA app out to all Universal Forwarder (or Heavy Forwarder) instances which are involved indexing the CDR data. WARNING – Be sure to not overwrite your specific inputs.conf file! Your specific inputs and configurations *should* be stored in a directory “TA_cisco_cdr/local/” and if it is we won’t overwrite those. But better to check than to have to restore configurations later! NOTE: At the simplest level, deploying the app means copying the TA_cisco_cdr directory into $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/ on these hosts and restarting the Splunk instance there. If you want to broaden your Splunk horizons you can also use Splunk’s Deployment Server TroubleshootingNot that we expect problems, but Splunk is a complex system and all sorts of interesting things can go wrong. The majority of the time there’s anything wrong it’s just that your browser is caching things it shouldn’t and using old copies of updated files. Please try clearing your browser cache (instructions vary based on your browser – Google is your friend) and check again. Also, try to reproduce the problem in Incognito mode or a new Private Window, depending on your browser. If that doesn’t resolve your problems, please contact us for help or email support@sideviewapps.com! The other issue we find is that after updating both apps, you may get a screen telling you “Page not found”. This is a bug in Splunk that we’re currently helping them to chase down, it’s not serious and is only some misdirection on the part of the update page. Just click the “here” in the middle and everything will be fine! If you have any comments at all about the documentation, please send it in to docs@sideviewapps.com. |