Change from RELEASE to CURRENT and back again

[kjg]

Hi
Since the new 11.28 has some news that might be a problem for us, I want to change from RELEASE to CURRENT on one of the servers and after having checked if everything works as expected change back to RELEASE since that is the tier we use.

Do you see any problems with this?

When going to CURRENT, the 11.28 will be installed and maybe also some other updates. (I can't see the 11.28 in CURRENT when checking under Change Log on the server, but I suppose it is already in CURRENT, or?)

I suppose nothing will actually happen when going back to RELEASE (the version installed via CURRENT will still be the one installed etc)

So this is what I think is happening:
* Changing from RELEASE to CURRENT
* Updates are made to reflect that Tier
* Checking if everything works OK
* Changing from CURRENT back to RELEASE. Nothing happends
* If/when problems occure in the version (11.28) we have installed and a new version is released under CURRENT, we will never get it (since we have changed update settings back to RELEASE)
* After a while the 11.28 version is released under RELEASE and our system will be updated

I suppose we could just change tier again to CURRENT if we need to have the new version before it is under RELEASE.

I have somewhere way back in my memory a hunch about a setting somewhere in WHM making it possible to rollback to a previous installation, but can't find it now.

Any advise on this would be appreciated

// kjg

 

[cPanelTristan]

I suggest only using a test machine to perform this task. This way, you can simply stay on CURRENT without going back to RELEASE. While it is possible to downgrade to RELEASE (unless you've switched off pre-fixing for MySQL databases), it isn't encouraged to downgrade in that manner.

As for the rollback feature, it's now deprecated to use cPanel rollback. The binary doesn't work anymore to utilize the cpanel-rollback files to actually accomplish a roll back to the prior cPanel version. The option used to be in Tweak Settings, but again it doesn't function as intended any longer.

Instead, you can simply change back to RELEASE in WHM > Update Preferences area, although that will not work if you shut off database pre-fixing as then any downgrades are prevented to a version of cPanel that doesn't allow removing database pre-fixing.

 

[kjg]

Thank you for your reply
The pre-fixing is no problem (it is not on as default I hope)

I am using a new server for this. Not yet in production, but planned to be in next week or so, so I want it to be stable at that time.

If I understand you correctly, the server is automatically downgraded when I change the settings in Update Preferences?
That might be a problem since I am sure there will be issues if that is done.

How can I stop this from happening?

There must be a time somewhere in the near future, where changing update settings back to RELEASE would be possible without anything happening, or am I missing something here ..?

 

[cPanelTristan]

If you review WHM > Update Preferences area, it's clear how it works:

Automatic (STABLE tree)
Automatic (RELEASE tree)
Automatic (CURRENT tree)
Manual Updates Only (STABLE tree)
Manual Updates Only (RELEASE tree)
Manual Updates Only (CURRENT tree)
Manual Updates Only (bleeding EDGE tree)
NEVER Update

If you want it to automatically change back to RELEASE, you'd select "Automatic (RELEASE tree)." If you want it not to update to RELEASE right away, you'd select "Manual Updates Only (RELEASE tree)." If you want it on CURRENT instead, you'd pick either automatic or manual for CURRENT. If you don't want it to update at all, you'd select "NEVER Update."

Of note, if you select any of the Manual Updates options, there will not be a nightly /scripts/upcp cron in /var/spool/cron/root to update cPanel. cPanel will not update again until you select to update it.

 

[kjg]

Thank's a lot for your reply. It might have saved me a numbers of hours of work

Well, it is clear how it works on upgrades, not on downgrades. Especially not for someone like me not having english as my native language.

Just to be clear:
If I have the settings set to automatic current and the updates are done, I will have a version that is not available in release.

If I then change the settings to automatic release, there will really be a downgrade performed.
So the version I have will be deleted and a older version will be installed instead? (the latest version in the release tree instead of the latest one in current tree)

 

[cPanelTristan]

If you change to automatic RELEASE and you were on CURRENT, it will downgrade the cPanel version to RELEASE on the system. It will overwrite the existing files you had for /usr/local/cpanel location to have the RELEASE version of those files rather than the CURRENT version.

 

[cPanelKenneth]

Downgrading to version 11.26 from 11.28 will result in Horde Groupware Webmail edition remaining installed on the server.

Database prefixing is on by default for every version of the product where we have supported databases. Version 11.28 allows you to opt-out of the prefixing.

As mentioned in our news release (cPanel & WHM 11.28 is almost here! - cPanel Inc.) we intend to publish 11.28 to the RELEASE tier on November 3, 2010.