What is the B Series Appliance upgrade guide?

The B Series Appliance upgrade guide provides step-by-step instructions for preparing and executing upgrades for various deployment configurations, including single appliances, failover pairs, and Atlas clusters. It also covers hardware upgrades to ensure compatibility with the latest software versions.

How is it useful to my organization?

This guide ensures your organization's B Series Appliances remain up to date with the latest features, security enhancements, and performance improvements. It provides clear instructions tailored to your deployment type, helping to minimize downtime, maintain system reliability, and ensure a seamless upgrade process.

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To get the details of each release, see the Remote Support release notes.

Upgrade preparation

Prior to upgrading, always create a backup of your settings and configuration from /login > Management > Software Management.
As a best practice, export a copy of your SSL certificates and private key, and save them locally to ensure continuity in case of a failure during the upgrade.

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For more information, see Export the certificate.

For major software releases, customers with current maintenance contracts are placed into a rollout schedule. Once your upgrade is ready, BeyondTrust alerts you via email to begin this upgrade procedure.
If your B Series Appliance is many months or years out of date, it is unlikely to be able to upgrade directly to the latest version of BeyondTrust in a single installation. In this case, some upgrade packages may be grayed out in the updates list and require another package to be installed first. Select Install This Update on the available package to enable the dependent one.
- If uncertain which updates to install or in which order, contact BeyondTrust Technical Support at beyondtrust.com/support with a screenshot of your /appliance > Status > Basics page to determine the specific updates needed for your B Series Appliance.
- In cases where intermediate BeyondTrust updates must be installed before the latest version, BeyondTrust software clients are not expected to auto-update successfully unless they are allowed time to retrieve the intermediate updates. Therefore, BeyondTrust recommends that you wait at least 24 hours after installing each package prefixed by BeyondTrust.
- Base updates do not require a waiting period, but they are typically prerequisite to BeyondTrust packages. As such, Base updates are normally installed immediately prior to BeyondTrust packages.
- If it is impossible to allow 24 hours for automatic client upgrades to complete, the alternative to automated updating is first to remove all existing client software, including representative consoles, Jump Clients, Gateways, Support Buttons, connection agents, etc. Install each BeyondTrust and Base upgrade in sequence until the latest version is reached. Then, manually reinstall all client software.
Installation usually takes between 15 minutes to an hour. However, if you are storing a large amount of data on your B Series Appliance (that is, session recordings), the installation could take significantly longer.
It is recommended to perform upgrades during scheduled maintenance windows. Your BeyondTrust site will be temporarily unavailable during the upgrade. All logged in users and active sessions will be terminated.
It is recommended to test the update in a controlled environment prior to deploying into production. Testing can best be performed when you have two B Series Appliances in a failover relationship and when you update asynchronously.
If you experience any issues during the Base update, do not restart the B Series Appliance. Contact BeyondTrust Technical Support.
If you have two B Series Appliances set up in a failover configuration, consider whether you want to update synchronously or asynchronously.
- With synchronous updating, the primary B Series Appliance is updated first and maintains its role as primary. This method does involve some downtime; we recommend synchronous updates for simple deployments and scenarios that will not suffer from being offline during the update.
- With asynchronous updating, the backup B Series Appliance is updated first and then assumes the role of primary. This method has minimal downtime; we recommend asynchronous updates for larger deployments and scenarios that rely on maintaining solid uptime. Some complexity is involved, as the network may have to be modified in order to fail over to the backup B Series Appliance.

Vault key backup

The Vault encryption key is used to encrypt and decrypt all Vault credentials stored on your BeyondTrust Appliance B Series. If you ever need to restore configuration data from a backup onto a new B Series Appliance, you must also restore the Vault encryption key from a backup to be able to use the encrypted Vault credentials contained in the configuration backup.

Backup password

To password protect your software backup file, create a password. If you do choose to set a password, you will be unable to revert to the backup without providing the password.

Download Vault encryption key

Click the Download Vault Encryption Key button to download the Vault encryption key for you to use later.

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The Vault encryption key must be password protected.

Client upgrades

Only certain upgrades require client software to update. Base software updates and license add-ons do not require client software updates. Site version updates do require client updates, however. Most client updates occur automatically, but the expected update procedure for each type of client is reviewed below.

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Important information
When upgrading to a newly built site software package, verify that all certificate stores are managed appropriately and are up to date prior to upgrading to a new BeyondTrust version. Failure to do so may cause a majority of your existing Jump Clients to appear offline.

Your installed representative consoles will need to be upgraded after the site upgrades. Typically, this occurs automatically the next time the representative runs the representative console.
- Representative consoles previously deployed on locked-down computers using MSI may need to be redeployed once the upgrade is complete.
- If the extractable representative console or extractable Jump Client feature has been enabled for your site by BeyondTrust Technical Support, then you can download an MSI installer to update representative consoles or Jump Clients prior to upgrading the B Series Appliance. To do this, check for the new update either manually or automatically. Click the Rep Console Installers or Jump Client Installers link to download the MSI for distribution. Updated clients will not come online until their B Series Appliance is updated. It is not necessary to uninstall the original client prior to deploying the new one, as the new one should automatically replace the original installation. It is a best practice, however, to keep a copy of the old MSI to remove the outdated installations after the B Series Appliance is updated should this removal prove necessary. The new MSI is unable to do so.
After an upgrade, deployed Jump Clients automatically update.
- If large numbers of Jump Clients attempt to update simultaneously, they may flood the B Series Appliance, severely crippling performance both on the B Series Appliance and the network, depending on the available bandwidth and hardware. To regulate the amount of bandwidth and resources consumed by Jump Client updates, go to /login > Asset Management > Jump Clients and set a lower value for Maximum Number of Concurrent Jump Client Upgrades and/or Maximum bandwidth of concurrent Jump Client upgrades.
- Jump Clients queue for update upon their first check-in with the B Series Appliance subsequent to the B Series Appliance's update. These check-in events occur at regular intervals outbound from the Jump Client host over TCP port 443 to the B Series Appliance. Jump Clients check in immediately after an upgrade is complete on the B Series Appliance.
- If a Jump Client has not yet been updated, it is labeled as Upgrade Pending, and its version and revision number appear in the details pane. You can modify and connect to an outdated Jump Client.
If your BeyondTrust Appliance B Series is out of date, multiple release versions may need to be installed to reach the current version. In this case, BeyondTrust recommends allowing at least 24 hours between updates to allow Jump Clients to upgrade.

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When upgrading to a new software version, please allow some time for all Jump Clients to come back online before moving forward with any other upgrading processes.

Once a Jump Client appears as online in the representative console or the /login > Status > Information page, it has updated successfully. An effective means of confirming that all Jump Clients have updated is to log in to the representative console as an administrative user with permission to modify all Jump Clients in the system. Export the list of Jump Clients. In the resulting report, sort the Jump Clients by Status Details and confirm that all the dates listed are more recent than the date of the last B Series Appliance upgrade.
If too many release versions are installed back-to-back without first allowing Jump Clients to upgrade, Jump Clients may require manual redeployment.
After an upgrade, Support Buttons update automatically upon being used for the first time subsequent to an upgrade.
After an upgrade, deployed Gateways should automatically update.
BeyondTrust Connection Agents update automatically after the site upgrades.
BeyondTrust Integration Clients do not automatically update after the site upgrades. Integration Clients must be re-installed manually.

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Integration Client installers are available from the Downloads page in the Customer portal.

Upon upgrading, it is strongly recommended to regenerate any installer packages previously created for Support Buttons, Jump Clients, and representative consoles. The clients themselves update as described above.

Single appliance

Automatic updates

In most cases, BeyondTrust customers can download and install updates with no assistance from BeyondTrust Technical Support. To see if an upgrade is available, log in to your BeyondTrust Appliance B Series (/appliance). On the Updates page, click on Check for updates.

If a software update is available, it will appear under Available Updates. Once you click Install This Update, the B Series Appliance will download and automatically install the new version of the BeyondTrust software.

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Important information
When upgrading to a newly built site software package, verify that all certificate stores are managed appropriately and are up-to-date prior to upgrading to a new BeyondTrust version. Failure to do so may cause a majority of your existing Jump Clients to appear offline.

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Some packages require another package to be installed first. Install the available package to enable the dependent one.

If automatic updates fail when expected to work, contact BeyondTrust Technical Support.

If you are still unable to perform automatic updates, please see Manual updates.

Manual updates

If you are unable to use automatic updates (e.g., if your B Series Appliance exists on a restricted network), you may perform manual updates.

Log in to your B Series Appliance and go to the Updates page. Click Appliance Download Key link to generate a unique B Series Appliance key. From a non-restricted system, submit this key to BeyondTrust's update server. Download any available updates to a removable storage device and then transfer those updates to a system from which you can manage your B Series Appliance.

From the Updates page, browse to the file from the Manual Installation section and click Update Software to complete the installation. The B Series Appliance installs the new version of the BeyondTrust software.

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Important information
When upgrading to a newly built site software package, verify that all certificate stores are managed appropriately and are up to date prior to upgrading to a new BeyondTrust version. Failure to do so may cause a majority of your existing Jump Clients to appear offline.

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Be prepared to install software updates directly after download. Once an update has been downloaded, it no longer appears in your list of available updates. Should you need to redownload an update, contact BeyondTrust Technical Support.

If you receive an error, please make sure the System Time displayed on the /appliance > Status > Basics page is correct. Many functions of the B Series Appliance, including the Appliance Download Key, rely on this time being correct. If the time is not correct, please check the NTP Server setting in the Global Network Configuration section of the Networking > IP Configuration page.