Upgrading Operating Systems for Enterprise Agents

This article provides an overview of upgrading your operating system to a supported version for the ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent, and provides links to specific upgrade instructions for supported environments.

Supported Operating Systems

For a full list of supported operating systems, see Enterprise Agent System Requirements.

Support Lifecycle

As operating system providers end support for versions of their operating systems, ThousandEyes will reduce or end support for Enterprise Agents on those operating systems. For more information on the lifecycle status of supported operating systems, see Enterprise Agent Support Lifecycle.

Upgrade Paths for Specific Systems

• Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal)

Additional Information for Installation Types

Linux Packages

Customers who choose to install the ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent onto their own Linux system using the Linux Package installation method are responsible for system maintenance.

ThousandEyes has tested and documented the upgrade process for supported Linux distributions.

Docker Enterprise Agents

To ensure the internal Docker OS is up-to-date, the command sequence will be:

docker pull <name>
docker stop <running-agent>
docker rm <running-agent>
docker run <same options as previous launch>

Cisco Application Hosting

ThousandEyes Enterprise Agents running on Cisco devices using Cisco Application Hosting are based on a Docker image, where the agent services within the running container are upgraded automatically. However, the application package which includes the container image is not. While the image is updated periodically to update the OS, address vulnerabilities and incorporate enhancements, manual intervention is required to upgrade the application to use the latest image.

The agent application package that includes the container image can be upgraded without upgrading the device system software. Upgrading the agent won't affect the device.

Reloading the device is not required, as it is an in-place upgrade.

These agents can be upgraded with the app-hosting upgrade command, replacing <app-name> with your application identifier and <ARCH-VERSION> with the device architecture and the current image version.

The available image versions are:

• For x86 devices: thousandeyes-enterprise-agent-x86_64-5.0.1.cisco.tar

• For ARM devices: thousandeyes-enterprise-agent-aarch64-5.0.1.cisco.tar

#app-hosting upgrade appid <app-name> package https://downloads.thousandeyes.com/enterprise-agent/thousandeyes-enterprise-agent-<ARCH-VERSION>.cisco.tar

If the router is behind a HTTP proxy, configuring the following may allow the image to be downloaded and installed:

ip http client proxy-server <name> proxy-port <port>

During the upgrade process, the agent will be stopped and deactivated. This means that any CA certificates that were added will be removed and must be reapplied. For more information on how to reapply the CA certificate, see Installing CA Certificates on Cisco Devices

ThousandEyes Virtual Appliances

ThousandEyes virtual appliances are based on supported Ubuntu LTS releases. See Supported Operating Systems - Ubuntu for more information on the specific supported Ubuntu release and support lifecycle.

For operating system upgrades, customers are responsible for upgrading the TEVA to the latest supported version. ThousandEyes will make best efforts to communicate affected customers through alerts in the ThousandEyes web application, emails to subscribers, and the Changelog.

Replacing Enterprise Agents

ThousandEyes Enterprise Agents can be replaced, rather than upgraded, either by clustering agents, or by transferring the agent identity files.

Agent Clustering

This method consists of deploying a new agent, clustering together the new agent with the old one, and then deleting the old agent from the cluster. The act of clustering transfers test associations and agent characteristics.

Complete instructions for replacing Enterprise Agents using the agent clustering method are available here.

Transferring Agent Identity Files

During the installation of a replacement Enterprise Agent, identity files from an existing Enterprise Agent are transferred to the replacement system. The platform will make no distinction between the original agent and the replacement agent.

Complete instructions for replacing Enterprise Agents using agent identity files are available here.

Requesting Support Consultations

Some customers may use the upgrade process as an opportunity to consider new agent deployment options, such as replacing virtual machines with containers. ThousandEyes Customer Engineering is available via our in-application chat function, or via email at [e-mail] to answer any questions that you may have.