Manually Upgrading a Socket

This article explains the manual upgrade process for Sockets sites.

Overview

Cato manages the Socket firmware upgrades and version control for Socket sites to make sure that they are running up-to-date versions. Major Socket versions are usually released quarterly. For more information, see Understanding Cato's Managed Socket Upgrade Service.

There are some scenarios where a Socket skipped an upgrade, for example, the Socket was not connected to the Cato Cloud during the maintenance window. When this happens, you will see a notification in the Cato Management Application, and you'll receive an email that the upgrade was skipped.

If that happens, you have the option to upgrade the Socket manually.

Note

Note: If the Socket is already on the latest version, the Upgrade option is greyed out.

Upgrading the Socket

This section explains how to perform a manual upgrade of your Socket.

  • You can only upgrade one Socket at a time

  • Cato recommends as a best practice to upgrade to the latest Socket version

The upgrade process takes approximately 20 minutes, and downtime is approximately 2 minutes. If you have any issues when upgrading, refer to this Socket upgrade troubleshooting article.

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To manually upgrade the Socket

  1. From the navigation menu, select Network > Sites, and select the site.

  2. From the navigation menu, select Site Configuration > Socket.

  3. Click Actions > Upgrade.

    If there is already an upgrade in progress for this Socket, the Upgrade menu option is greyed out.

    • Select the version to which to upgrade.

  4. Click Upgrade.

Manually Upgrading for HA Deployments

For HA deployments, Cato recommends that you first upgrade the primary Socket, which triggers a failover to the secondary Socket. The primary Socket completes the upgrade, including the downtime, and after approximately 20 minutes, you will receive an email notification that the upgrade was successful and the primary Socket is upgraded and stable. As soon as the Primary Socket comes back online, it takes back the Primary Socket status.

At that point, you can upgrade the secondary Socket. After approximately 20 minutes, you will receive an email notification that the upgrade was successful and the HA status should be Up.

Note

Note: The upgrade process takes approximately 20 minutes, and downtime is a few seconds (depending on how long it takes for the VRRP to notify the secondary Socket). When using BGP, the time for BGP failover and routes to be refreshed is dependent on the BGP configuration.

If you have any issues when upgrading, refer to this Socket upgrade troubleshooting article.

Pause Automatic Upgrades

Cato automatically upgrades Sockets as part of the Managed Socket Upgrade Service. However, in some scenarios, you might want to skip an upgrade to avoid any potential downtime. For example, if you have a business-critical site around the holiday season, to avoid taking the site down for any period of time, you want to opt out of the automatic upgrades.

To pause automatic upgrades for a site:

  1. From the navigation menu, click Network > Sites, and select the site with the Socket whose upgrades you are pausing.

  2. From the navigation menu, click Site Configuration > Socket.

  3. From the Actions menu of the site, select Pause Automatic Upgrades.

    A warning window opens.

  4. Click OK.

    Cato recommends that you resume automatic upgrades as soon as your business needs allow for it to ensure that your Sockets are kept up-to-date.

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