Upgrade from Server Version 8.10.0 or Lower to the Latest One Takes Very Long Time to Complete

Products

• Carbon Black App Control (formerly Cb Protection)

Issue/Introduction

During a server upgrade from a version prior to 8.10.2, the step Executing 'migrate'. Please wait... seems stuck, but the time elapsed continues to count up.

Environment

• App Control Server: 8.10.0 and Lower

Cause

When upgrading from Server version prior to 8.10.2, a one-time database table restructuring is required during the upgrade process; this can cause significantly longer upgrade times.

EP-19460: Changed how we store Yara Tags associated with file instances to improve query performance and to significantly reduce disk storage usage.

Resolution

How long will the upgrade take?

• The upgrade time is highly variable. It is dependent on the number of antibody (file) instances present in the database, the count of the associated Yara tags, and the SQL resources available.
• For smaller installations the upgrade will likely be complete within 1-2 hours, but some reported upgrade times have ranged from 1 hour to as extreme as 48+ hours.
• To get the best estimate, it's recommended to have a test environment with a copy of the production database where the upgrade can be done first.

Is there anything else I can do?

Technical Support can provide an alternative solution that makes the upgrade itself faster (within the normal 15-20 mins), but it has other downsides. The solution involves:

• Dropping (Removing) the existing YARA tags table completely
• Resycning every file from every agent (to rebuild the yara tag information at the server level)

This alternative solution can cause extreme server backlog that can take significantly longer than the upgrade to recover from. For these reasons, generally the long upgrade time is more preferable. If it's still desired, open a Technical Support Case for assistance with this procedure.

Additional Information

• Warnings were included in the Release Notes regarding the potential for this increased upgrade time.
• The What's Running Now script can be used to monitor the Individual Query changes and overall duration of this step.
  • The Status column showing "Suspended" is not a cause for concern.
• Delaying the upgrade will potentially increase the time it takes to complete due to additional Yara tag and file associations.