How to upgrade to the latest version

This section describes the main steps to manually update an existing Knowage installation, on top of the certified Apache Tomcat server, to the latest available version.

Pay attention to the fact that Knowage versions’ names adhere to the Semantic Versioning 2.0.0.

In the following we will refer to Tomcat installation folder as TOMCAT_HOME.

The upgrade of the following Knowage components is generally needed:

  • the applications that reside within TOMCAT_HOME/webapps folder: all knowage*.war files (knowage.war, knowagebirtreportengine.war, knowagecockpitengine.war, …)
  • the Knowage metadata database, where information about analyses, datasets, etc … is stored.

The latter component must be upgraded in case you are moving from a different major or minor version (for example: from 6.4.x to 7.2.y, or from 7.1.x to 7.2.y), but there is no need in case you are upgrading to a new patch release of the same major/minor family (for example: from 7.2.0 to 7.2.6, or from 7.2.6 to 7.2.13).

Preliminary operations

Before starting upgrade procedure, you have to:

  • download latest packages from the OW2 repository: base location is https://release.ow2.org/knowage/, you’ll find a folder for each version, each folder contains: Applications with the relevant war files, and Database scripts with the SQL scripts (distributed as zip files) to upgrade Knowage metadata database for supported RDBMS;
  • make a backup copy of the old web applications that reside within: TOMCAT_HOME/webapps;
  • make a backup copy of Knowage metadata database.

Upgrade operations

To upgrade Knowage installation follow these steps:

  • stop Apache Tomcat service;

  • upgrade the Knowage metadata database by executing the SQL scripts. Each SQL script is conceived for upgrading a Knowage <major.minor> version into the next one, therefore you need to execute all scripts between your current <major.minor> version to the latest one. As an example, suppose RDBMS is Oracle, your current Knowage version is 6.0.x and you want to upgrade into Knowage 6.3.x, then you need to execute the following scripts:

    1
2
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    ORA_upgradescript_6.0_to_6.1.sql
ORA_upgradescript_6.1_to_6.2.sql
ORA_upgradescript_6.2_to_6.3.sql

    Note

    Moving into a newest patch version within the same <major.minor> family

    In case you are moving into a newest patch version that belongs to the same <major.minor> family (for example from Knowage 7.2.0 to 7.2.6, or from 7.2.6 to 7.2.13) there is no need to execute any SQL script.

  • move all knowage*.war files and all the knowage* directories from TOMCAT_HOME/webapps into a backup directory;

  • delete the following directories: TOMCAT_HOME/temp and TOMCAT_HOME/work;

  • copy and paste all the new knowage*.war packages within TOMCAT_HOME/webapps directory;

  • in case you are upgrading from a version prior to 7.2.0, create a file containing the password encryption secret (just a random text of any length). This is a security configuration, so don’t use short strings. Do not distribute it for any reason. Then update TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml file by creating a new environment variable as shown below and set the value property as the complete path of the file with password encryption secret:

<Environment name="password_encryption_secret" description="File for security encryption location"
   type="java.lang.String" value="${catalina.home}/conf/knowage.secret"/>

At this point, in some cases you need to deal with some configuration files, in particular when you modified the following files within the previous Knowage installation, then you need to restore those changes (after having unzipped the war files):

  • context files TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowage*/META-INF/context.xml: they contain links to resources such as datasource connections and environment variables; in case you modified them in order to add a new datasource, you need to restore the changes and check if links to environment variables defined in TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml are all there. In case you defined contexts with relevant files inside TOMCAT_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost and you are upgrading from a version prior to 7.2.0, then you need to add the link to the password_encryption_secret variable, since that was introduced by 7.2.0 version;

  • Hibernate files: they contain the metadata database Hibernate dialect (the hibernate.dialect property): since versione 7.2.0, Knowage is able to autodetect the dialect by itself but, in case you customized it to a value other than org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect or org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect or org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect, you have to restore your change: this is the list of Hibernate files to be checked:

    TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowage/WEB-INF/classes/hibernate.cfg.xml
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowagecockpitengine/WEB-INF/classes/hibernate.cfg.xml
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowagedataminingengine/WEB-INF/classes/hibernate.cfg.xml
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowagegeoreportengine/WEB-INF/classes/hibernate.cfg.xml
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowagekpiengine/WEB-INF/classes/hibernate.cfg.xml
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowagemeta/WEB-INF/classes/hibernate.cfg.xml
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowagesvgviewerengine/WEB-INF/classes/hibernate.cfg.xml

  • Quartz configuration file for metadata database dialect and for cluster configuration (in case of any cluster): again, since versione 7.2.0, Knowage is able to autodetect the dialect by itself but, in case you customized the org.quartz.jobStore.driverDelegateClass property inside TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowage/WEB-INF/classes/quartz.properties to a value other than org.quartz.impl.jdbcjobstore.StdJDBCDelegate or org.quartz.impl.jdbcjobstore.PostgreSQLDelegate or org.quartz.impl.jdbcjobstore.oracle.OracleDelegate, you have to restore your change. Regarding cluster configuration, by default it is not enabled on released packages therefore you need to restore it in case you have a clustered installation: add these lines in TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/knowage/WEB-INF/classes/quartz.properties (or restore them from the backup copy):

    org.quartz.jobStore.isClustered = true
org.quartz.jobStore.clusterCheckinInterval = 20000
org.quartz.scheduler.instanceId = AUTO
org.quartz.scheduler.instanceName = RHECMClusteredSchedule

Important

Since Knowage 7.2.0, the security level was highly increased. For this reason, users are requested to log in and change their password as a first step after upgrading.

To admin users: it is recommended to check which users didn’t change the password and tell them to do it as soon as possible. Run the following query on the Knowage metadata database to extract the list of users who are still using the previous password encryption mechanism:

select * from SBI_USER where password like '#SHA#%' order by user_id;