CLIENTUPDATE(1) 					      General Commands Manual						   CLIENTUPDATE(1)

NAME

       clientupdate - Xymon client update utility

SYNOPSIS

       clientupdate [options]

DESCRIPTION

       clientupdate  is  part  of  the	Xymon  client. It is responsible for updating an existing client installation from a central repository of
       client packages stored on the Xymon server.

       When the Xymon client sends a normal client report to the Xymon server, the server responds with the  section  of  the  client-local.cfg(5)
       file  that  is relevant to this client. Included in this may be a "clientversion" value. The clientversion received from the server is com-
       pared against the current clientversion installed on the client, as determined by the contents of the  $BBHOME/etc/clientversion.cfg  file.
       If the two versions are not identical, clientupdate is launched to update the client installation.

OPTIONS

       --level
	      Report the current clientversion.

       --update=NEWVERSION
	      Attempt to update the client to NEWVERSION by fetching this version of the client software from the Xymon server.

       --reexec
	      Used internally during the update process, see OPERATION below.

       --remove-self
	      Used  internally during the update process. This option causes the running clientupdate utility to delete itself - it is used during
	      the update to purge a temporary copy of the clientupdate utility that is installed in $BBTMP.

USING CLIENTUPDATE IN HOBBIT

       To manage updating clients without having to logon to each server, you can use the clientupdate utility. This is how you setup the  release
       of a new client version.

       Create the new client
	      Setup  the  new client $BBHOME directory, e.g. by copying an existing client installation to an empty directory and modifying it for
	      your needs. It is a good idea to delete all files in the tmp/ and logs/ directories, since there is no need to copy  these  over	to
	      all  of  the clients. Pay attention to the etc/ files, and make sure that they are suitable for the systems where you want to deploy
	      this new client.	You can add files - e.g. extension scripts in the ext/ directory - but the clientupdate utility cannot	delete	or
	      rename files.

       Package the client
	      When  your new client software is ready, create a tar-file of the new client. All files in the tar archive must have filenames rela-
	      tive to the clients' $BBHOME (usually, ~xymon/client/).  Save the  tarfile  on  the  Xymon  server  in  ~xymon/server/download/some-
	      file.tar.   Dont	compress  it.	It  is recommended that you use some sort of operating-system and version-numbering scheme for the
	      filename, but you can choose whatever filename suits you - the only requirement is that it must end with ".tar".	The  part  of  the
	      filename preceding ".tar" is what Xymon will use as the "clientversion" ID.

       Configure which hosts receive the new client
	      In  the client-local.cfg(5) file, you must now setup a clientversion:ID line where the ID matches the filename you used for the tar-
	      file. So if you have packaged the new client into the file linux.v2.tar, then the corresponding entry in client-local.cfg  would	be
	      clientversion:linux.v2.

       Wait for hobbitd to reload client-local.cfg
	      hobbitd will automatically reload the client-local.cfg file after at most 10 minutes. If you want to force an immediate reload, send
	      a SIGHUP signal to the hobbitd process.

       Wait for the client to update
	      The next time the client contacts the Xymon server to send the client data, it will notice the new clientversion setting in  client-
	      local.cfg,  and will run clientupdate to install the new client software. So when the client runs the next time, it will use the new
	      client software.

OPERATION

       clientupdate runs in two steps:

       Re-exec step
	      The first step is when clientupdate is first invoked from the hobbitclient.sh script with the "--re-exec" option. This  step  copies
	      the  clientupdate program from $BBHOME/bin/ to a temporary file in the $BBTMP directory.	This is to avoid conflicts when the update
	      procedure installs a new version of the clientupdate utility itself. Upon completion of this step, the clientupdate utility automat-
	      ically launches the next step by running the program from the file in $BBTMP.

       Update step
	      The  second  step  downloads  the new client software from the Xymon server.  The new software must be packed into a tar file, which
	      clientupdate then unpacks into the $BBHOME directory.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       clientupdate uses several of the standard Xymon environment variables, including BBHOME and BBTMP.

SEE ALSO

       xymon(7), bb(1), client-local.cfg(5)

Xymon							    Version 4.2.3:  4 Feb 2009						   CLIENTUPDATE(1)