Wowza Community

Upgrading wowza 4.x - 4.5.x

@Wowza Team

I think i’m in the right forum for this. I noticed something in the upgrade process of wowza when i had a faulty upgrade. I decided to rollback on another server, but i couldnt find my applications in the backup.

It has been since the first version of 4.x or in the first upgrade process.

The upgrade process runs smooth, the installer says it creates a backup. So far so good.

but why doesn’t it create a full backup of alle the applications and conf directory? I noticed it in the first time i did an update, that a backup zip was created. After i examined the zip file i noticed that problem.

These are the directories that have been backuped.

bin

documentation

lib

lib-native

manager

but what about the directories:

applications

backup

conf

content

examples

keys

legal

logs

mediacache

rollbackBackupDirectory

scripts

stats

transcoder

updates

Is there a specific reason for it? Do you advise customers to create full backups first (i wouldn’t consider the content directory though, that should run at normal backups or is connected to another share). but im kinda curious what would be reason not to backup the other directories.

Edit:

question 2.

i also noticed after the update from 4.4.1 to 4.5 that a symlink has been created. So now /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine points to /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine-4.4.1

Whats the reason for that?

Server OS: Ubuntu 16.04 64Bit

Hi,

I have answered your question through support ticket #179912 you have opened with our Support Team. I am leaving my response here as well as it might be useful for other users.

The backup process created an archive containing only the files that were updated during the update process. Typically, a server update consists of deploying new server libraries (lib/, lib-native/) and server startup scripts. Also, if there are documentation updates, the older version of this folder can be backed up as well.

The server, transcoder and application configuration files are not being backed up because these files are not being modified during the update process.

For a major update (from Wowza 3.x to Wowza 4.x), a full server installation is needed. Since the Wowza 3.x configuration files are not fully compatible with a Wowza 4.x server. It is required to start with a fresh Wowza 4.x installation and configure the server and applications after the server has been installed and avoid copying/overwriting old configuration files on top of the new Wowza 4.x installation.

Of course, it is always recommended to create a full backup of your Wowza Streaming Engine setup and keep the backup files in a secure location, as the is always the possibility of a general server crash. Having a full backup available would help lowering the downtime of your production server in case of a major server disaster.

The symlinks you are referencing are being created during the installation process and they are used in the server startup scripts.

Zoran

ok. i get the part of the backup. I don’t mind it. im running a separate backupscript for that anyway.

For the version 3 to 4 i agree.

About the second question. I always test before upgrading production servers. The upgrade works, so that’s not the problem. I run backups of the applications based on a hard directory, not on a symlink. So or the upgrade has changed and i have to edit my backup scripts, or something else is going on.

I’m just curious why the symlink redirection is taking place on this upgrade (to 4.5.0). Why changing the name of WowzaStreamingEngine to WowzaStreamingEngine-4.4.1

in my point of view its misleading. im running 4.5.0 but the files are located in /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine-4.4.1

what will happen if i upgrade to 4.5.1 will the files still be located in /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine-4.4.1 ?

i will do a complete reinstall of the 4.4.1 version to see if the problem is on my end or if its the installer. I hope i explained my point.

Ok. did a reinstall of 4.4.0 and upgraded again to 4.5.0. still i get the symlink issue.

quote:

The symlinks you are referencing to are being created during the installation process and they are used in the server startup scripts.

That’s the part i noticed, so it’s not an answer to my question. In previous upgrades the directory named stayed the same (WowzaStreamingEngine). The question for me is WHY the name change to (the old) version i just upgraded (WowzaStreamingEngine-4.4.1). Shouldn’t it a least be WowzaStreamingEngine-4.5.0 then?

Now the 4.5.0 files are located in the 4.4.1 directory. Kinda misleading don’t you think?

Hi,

There should always be a symlink called WowzaStreamingEngine that points to the physical location. So if you installed the full 4.4.1 installer then it would point to WowzaStreamingEngine-4.4.1. If you then applied an updater for 4.5.0 this would still be installed in WowzaStreamingEngine-4.4.1 and the symlink won’t change.

However, if you installed using the full installer for 4.5 on top of (or instead of) your existing 4.4.1 installation then this will create a new installation directory at WowzaStreamingEngine-4.5.0. The full installer is aware of other versions installed and will ask you which one to make the default for startup. The symlink will then optionally change if you choose the newly installed release.

Regards,

Paul