When I use 2018.TSM I'm referring to any version of TS (Tableau Server) that uses TSM.
I began with a fresh install of 2018.1.4 (our current PROD environment) on our software testing QA Server. This was a clean server with no traces of any Tableau software or registry entries on it. This was a fully functional copy of our PROD TS. Note that my worker has 12 cores and is running 12 backgrounders. This works for 2018.1 and older but, I found out, will not work with 2018.TSM!
Prior test installs failed and I even tried wiping out everything and running a fresh 2018.TSM install but the added time and labor of setting everything back up was a real pain in the but t. 2018.2.x was proving to be far too much trouble and stress-inducing so I skipped to 2018.3 and am glad I did as this version works better, with less bugs and slightly better status messages. Thus this install is with a currently running and functional TS installed! This is where the majority of us are and want to be, not starting out in a virgin environment totally devoid of Tableau.
Ignore 2018.2.x! Do not even consider it!
If you are not using VizAlerts then upgrade to 2018.3.2 or whatever the latest version is available.
If you are using VizAlerts then upgrade to 2018.3.1. 2018.3.3, when it comes out, should have the bug fixes in it to allow VizAlerts to function. Info is here: Warning: Do not upgrade to Server 2018.3.2 if using VizAlerts!
You've got to be patient. Many times there was little to no activity in my Task Managers and it seemed like things were hung but I decided to wait and, sure enough, things eventually progressed. YMMV (your mileage may vary).
I have a primary server and a worker server, so a 2 node environment.
Thus if you have less disk space consumed you can probably assume that your times will be shorter than mine. Hopefully.
Logon to servers using an administrator account. This is important. I used my regular [personal] account.
Uninstalled from both nodes using the regular Uninstall option from Control Panel >> Programs and Features.
Copy the backup .tsbak into the TS destination folder. This will then allow the upgrade to automatically perform a restore to your database but this will increase this install time. Alternatively, don't save the backup file here and simply perform the upgrade as described below and once it's done & working then perform the tsm maintenance restore.
Being highly impatient I did a simultaneous install of WN (Worker Node) and PN (Primary Node). If you have a single node environment just ignore all WN commentary.
Create the bootstrap.json file on the PN and save to the WN.
The bootstrap file is saved to my temp folder. I then copied it to the temp folder on my WN.
I think this took around 30 minutes to complete even though it looked like nothing was happening. Done with WN, yeay!
Now run UPGRADE-TSM.CMD on the primary server. You do this whether you have a single node or multi-nodes in your TS environment. Pay attention to the password requests for the particular user. RUN AS USER will be asked for which is naturally a different password than my personal account. Took almost an hour for me.
Make changes if necessary…I recommend making changes after the TS is up and running (next step) but if errors are now happening then go ahead and make the changes.
Click “Start Tableau Server” to make it available!
It took about 10-15 minutes for the browser to display the opening login screen on a separate machine. The TSM window took about 30 minutes to complete.
Apply server setting changes script if you have one (mine took about 30 minutes) or make manual changes, otherwise skip to Step 18.
Toby. Thanks for sharing, and it helped clarify something for us!!!! We went to 2018.3.2 as a clean install, but when we upgrade to a yet to be newer release, we were wondering how to go about generating the new bootstrap file from the "initial node" (I think they did away with the terms of primary / worker). I think the right way to do it is to do the "tsm topology nodes get-bootstrap-file".
Also, in the new version, it's a nice feature that you can change the # of backgrounders without having to recycle the entire server!!!!
And I missed the post about vizalerts , but we will get it working as soon as we apply the patch.
Correct, the terminology has changed but with so many other changes thrown at us I purposefully used the old terms to keep the confusion down.
...I think the right way to do it is to do the "tsm topology nodes get-bootstrap-file".
I wonder if it would be simpler to only upgrade the primary node and once it's running then start adding the worker nodes?
While being able to change the # of Backgrounders is nice w/o bringing down the TS, it still takes just as long to make it happen so it's not a fast process.
Jeff, Congratulations for 2018.3 upgrade. Which version did you start with? We are going from 10.5 to 2018.3.2 this weekend. Do you think that the Restore would work?
1. Please keep the Tableau server backup on a different machine before you start upgrading.
2. You need to uninstall pre-TSM Tableau server versions and then install TSM Tableau version before restoring.
3. The only thing to remember is to install Tableau server on all nodes (primary and additional nodes) configure it then start it. Copy the backup file to backups folder (Default location: C:\ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\files\backups\). Once Tableau server is up and running perform a restore (TSM maintenance restore).
Hi Toby. Yes your point about getting up and running on the initial node with a full restore and then subsequently adding additional nodes is excellent, and seems to work very well, and is a 180 degree turn from what we had done in the past. By very well, per this post https://community.tableau.com/message/866662?et=watches.email.outcome#866662 , we started off with our normal way of doing the install (Friday 5pm backup / uninstall / install the primary, workers, coordination service ensemble, custom settings and then doing a restore). At about 2am when couldn't figure out what the "fly" was going on, we did a clean install on the initial node, did a restore to here, and then added everything else in the daylight hours. To our joy, the restore ran, and it ran about 5x quicker!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we think this is the way to go.
Hi Mark. Yes, previous to last weekend we were on 10.5.3, and we went to 2018.3.2 with a clean install, backup / restore. Have a look at the restore thread for details. Here's a few key tips from our perspective, if I think of more I will try to add more later.
- Make sure that the tsbak file has rights to Network Service. Otherwise the restore fails with a "access denied" In fact, I granted ownership rights to "Network Service", I'm not sure if this was necessary, but it worked.
- When setting up the coordination service ensemble, I suggest to not script this, or an option is to put sleep statements in there between each sequence. The Tableau admin instructions say to wait a few minutes between steps, we originally missed this part and may have messed something up internally that caused us to have to start over.
- TSM is a whole new creature. You can monitor TSM jobs via "TSM jobs list". And if you start a few maintenance jobs at the same time, then they will run sequentially and the 2 through N ones will be in the queue. But the timer starts when they are queued, so make sure that you have a --request-timeout that's sufficient which is different for every TSM maintenance activity.
- If you run a "TSM maintenance cleanup" while the cluster is active, and you do a "TSM status" in a different window, you may see that the status appears to be degraded. This I think is a misnomer because the cluster is still operating effectively, it's an indication of TSM doing some work.
- TSM is a batch file. Watch out for any corporate group policies that may prevent app service accounts from executing these files. We ran into this limitation where it works fine under our individual id's, but not with a service account. We found this ahead of time and worked with our windows admin team to modify group policy for these accounts.
- Tabmon needs to be reconfigured. There are new sections to specify the ports.
Sorry about the failed Friday attempt but that's great news on the other approach (build initial node, restore, add secondary/worker nodes). I think we may have a new recommendation for 2018.TSM upgrades!
Excellent point! I think making TSM a batch file was not a good move.
Thank you very much Jeff, Toby and Eswar, I am upgrading from 10.5.3 to 2018.3.2 as well this weekend. We did dry run in our test env however I am still concerned specially with the restore step. Excellent tips and specially about coordination service ensemble.
Here is our high level plan. Do you see anything should be different?
If restore from hot backup failed (again) and no easy solution from Tableau Support, uninstall 2018.3 from all nodes, re-install 10.5, restore cold backup which should work. Then we are back to step 0.
Mark, I never rebooted my servers during the process but I can understand the piece-of-mind doing so can be. If you are going to reboot then do it prior to installing the upgrade software, so right before your Step 3.
I updated my Step 3 for those not as familiar with Tableau Server upgrading. Do not save the backup file in the install directory if you want to install the software and make sure there are no errors beforehand. If the server upgrade went well then you can restore the backup using the tsm command.
We're looking into doing an upgrade from 10.5 soon as well. Am I reading correctly that there is no way to restore settings from the backup? We have site-specific saml configured so I'm concerned we will have to update all of those configurations on our IDP side since the new sites will have different information. We switched from AD auth to local auth and that was a real bear. Hoping that the upgrade from 10.5 to 2018.3 won't be as painful, despite having to do all the configurations manually. Would welcome any insight or tips with regards to these comments.
If you perform a tsm obliterate I do not know 100% for sure if restoring from a non-tsm backup will restore server settings or not but according to this I believe it will.
if you perform uninstall (pre-tsm version) and install (tsm version), it should bring all the configuration settings provided, you install on all nodes and then start. Also, remember not to delete any folders in program data (like Flexnet folder etc.).