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Patching Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0
Red Hat Customer Content Services
brms-docs@redhat.com
Abstract
Preface
As a Red Hat Decision Manager user, you can apply product updates to Red Hat Decision Manager as they become available in the Red Hat Customer Portal to keep your Red Hat Decision Manager distribution current with the latest enhancements and fixes. Red Hat provides patch tools and product notifications for new patch releases so you can more readily apply helpful updates to Red Hat Decision Manager and Decision Server.
Prerequisites
- Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0 or 7.0.x is installed. For information about installation, see Installing Red Hat Decision Manager on premise.
- You have a Red Hat Customer Portal account.
Chapter 1. Red Hat Decision Manager versioning
Red Hat Decision Manager versions are designated with a numerical Major.Minor.Patch
format, such as 7.0.1
. In this example, the major release is 7.x.x
, the minor release is 7.0.x
, and the patch release is 7.0.1
. Major releases often require data migration, while minor release upgrades and patch updates are typically managed with upgrade and update tools provided with the Red Hat Decision Manager release artifacts.
The following are the general types of releases for Red Hat Decision Manager:
- Major release migrations
Major releases of Red Hat Decision Manager include substantial enhancements, security updates, bug fixes, and possibly redesigned features and functions. Data migration may be required when an application is moved from one major release to another major release, such as from Red Hat JBoss BRMS 6.4 to Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0. Automated migration tools are often provided with new major versions of Red Hat Decision Manager to facilitate migration, but some manual effort is occasionally required for certain data and configurations. The supported migration paths are specified in product announcements and documentation.
For example migration instructions, see Migrating from Red Hat BRMS 6.4 to Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0.
- Minor release upgrades
Minor releases of Red Hat Decision Manager include enhancements, security updates, and bug fixes. Data migration is not typically required when an application is upgraded to the next minor release, such as from Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0 to Red Hat Decision Manager 7.1. Automated upgrade tools are often provided with new minor versions of Red Hat Decision Manager to facilitate upgrading.
Minor release upgrades currently do not apply to Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0.
- Patch updates
- Patch updates of Red Hat Decision Manager typically include the latest security updates and bug fixes. Scheduled patch updates contain all previously released patch updates for that minor version of the product, so you do not need to apply each patch update incrementally in order to apply the latest update. For example, you can update Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0.0 or 7.0.1 to Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0.2. However, for optimal Red Hat Decision Manager performance, you should apply product updates as they become available. Occasionally, unscheduled patch updates may be released outside the normal update cycle of the existing product. These may include security or other updates provided by Red Hat Global Support Services (GSS) to fix specific issues, and may not be cumulative updates. Automated patch tools are often provided with patch releases of Red Hat Decision Manager to facilitate updating.
To keep your Red Hat Decision Manager distribution current with the latest enhancements and fixes, apply new product releases and updates to Red Hat Decision Manager as they become available in the Red Hat Customer Portal. Consider also enabling product notifications in the Red Hat Customer Portal.
For information about enabling product notifications, see Chapter 2, Enabling Red Hat Decision Manager notifications in the Red Hat Customer Portal.
Chapter 2. Enabling Red Hat Decision Manager notifications in the Red Hat Customer Portal
You can enable notifications in the Red Hat Customer Portal to receive Red Hat Decision Manager updates and announcements. These notifications inform you of updated or added documentation, product releases, and patch updates related to Red Hat Decision Manager. With notifications enabled, you can more readily apply product updates to Red Hat Decision Manager as they become available in the Red Hat Customer Portal to keep your Red Hat Decision Manager distribution current with the latest enhancements and fixes.
Prerequisite
You have a Red Hat Customer Portal account and are logged in.
Procedure
- In the top-right corner of the Red Hat Customer Portal window, click your profile name and click Notifications.
- Select the Notifications tab and click Manage Notifications.
- Next to Follow, select Products from the drop-down menu, and then select Red Hat Decision Manager from the next drop-down menu that appears.
- Click Save Notification to finish.
You can add notifications for any other products as needed in the same way.
Chapter 3. Applying patch updates to Red Hat Decision Manager
Patch updates of Red Hat Decision Manager typically include the latest security updates and bug fixes. Scheduled patch updates contain all previously released patch updates for that minor version of the product, so you do not need to apply each patch update incrementally in order to apply the latest update. For example, you can update Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0.0 or 7.0.1 to Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0.2. However, to keep your Red Hat Decision Manager distribution current with the latest fixes, apply patch updates to Red Hat Decision Manager as they become available in the Red Hat Customer Portal.
Automated patch tools are often provided with patch releases to facilitate updating certain components of Red Hat Decision Manager, such as Decision Central, Decision Server, and the standalone Decision Server controller. Other Red Hat Decision Manager artifacts, such as the decision engine and standalone Decision Central, are released as new artifacts with each patch update and you must re-install them to apply the update.
Only updates for Red Hat Decision Manager are included in Red Hat Decision Manager patch updates. Patches to Red Hat JBoss EAP must be applied using Red Hat JBoss EAP patch distributions. For more information about Red Hat JBoss EAP patching, see the Red Hat JBoss EAP Patching and upgrading guide.
Prerequisite
Your Red Hat Decision Manager and Decision Server instances are not running. Do not apply patch updates while you are running an instance of Red Hat Decision Manager or Decision Server.
Procedure
Navigate to the Software Downloads page in the Red Hat Customer Portal (login required), and select the product and version from the drop-down options.
Example:
- Product: Decision Manager
- Version: 7.0.1
Click Patches, download Red Hat Decision Manager [VERSION] Patch Update, and extract the downloaded
rhdm-$VERSION-patch.zip
file to a temporary directory.This patch update tool automates the update of certain components of Red Hat Decision Manager, such as Decision Central, Decision Server, and the standalone Decision Server controller. Use this update tool first to apply updates and then install any other patch updates or new release artifacts that are relevant to your Red Hat Decision Manager distribution.
If you want to preserve any files from being updated by the patch update tool, navigate to the extracted
rhdm-$VERSION-patch
folder, open theblacklisted.txt
file, and add the relative paths to the files that you do not want to be updated.When a file is listed in the
blacklist.txt
file, the patch update script does not replace the file with the new version but instead leaves the file in place and in the same location adds the new version with a.new
suffix. If you blacklist files that are no longer being distributed, the patch update tool creates an empty marker file with a.removed
suffix. You can then choose to retain, merge, or delete these new files manually.Example files to be excluded in
blacklisted.txt
file:WEB-INF/web.xml // Custom file styles/base.css // Obsolete custom file kept for record
The contents of the blacklisted file directories after the update:
$ ls WEB-INF web.xml web.xml.new
$ ls styles base.css base.css.removed
In your command terminal, navigate to the temporary directory where you extracted the
rhdm-$VERSION-patch.zip
file and run theapply-updates
script in the following format:ImportantMake sure that your Red Hat Decision Manager and Decision Server instances are not running before you apply patch updates. Do not apply patch updates while you are running an instance of Red Hat Decision Manager or Decision Server.
On Linux or Unix-based systems:
$ ./apply-updates.sh $DISTRO_PATH $DISTRO_TYPE
On Windows:
$ ./apply-updates.bat $DISTRO_PATH $DISTRO_TYPE
The
$DISTRO_PATH
portion is the path to the relevant distribution directory and the$DISTRO_TYPE
portion is the type of distribution that you are updating with this patch.The following distribution types are supported in Red Hat Decision Manager patch update tool:
-
decision-central-eap7-deployable
: Updates Decision Central (decision-central.war
) -
kie-server-ee7
: Updates Decision Server (kie-server.war
) -
kie-server-jws
: Updates Decision Server on Red Hat JBoss Web Server (kie-server.war
) -
controller-ee7
: Updates the standalone Decision Server controller (controller.war
) -
controller-jws
: Updates the standalone Decision Server controller on Red Hat JBoss Web Server (controller.war
)
Example patch update to Decision Central and Decision Server for a full Red Hat Decision Manager distribution on Red Hat JBoss EAP:
./apply-updates.sh ~EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/decision-central.war decision-central-eap7-deployable ./apply-updates.sh ~EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/kie-server.war kie-server-ee7
Example patch update to standalone Decision Server controller, if used:
./apply-updates.sh ~EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/controller.war controller-ee7
The patch update script creates a
backup
folder in the extractedrhdm-$VERSION-patch
folder with a copy of the specified distribution, and then proceeds with the update.-
After the update tool completes, return to the Software Downloads page of the Red Hat Customer Portal where you downloaded the patch update tool and install any other patch updates or new release artifacts that are relevant to your Red Hat Decision Manager distribution.
For files that already exist in your Red Hat Decision Manager distribution, such as
.jar
files for the decision engine or other add-ons, replace the existing version of the file with the new version from the Red Hat Customer Portal.If you use the standalone Red Hat Decision Manager 7.0.1 Maven Repository artifact (
rhdm-7.0.1-maven-repository.zip
), such as in air-gap environments, download Red Hat Decision Manager [VERSION] Incremental Maven Repository and extract the downloadedrhdm-$VERSION-incremental-maven-repository.zip
file to your existing~/maven-repository
directory to update the relevant contents.Example:
$ unzip -o rhdm-7.0.1-incremental-maven-repository.zip -d $REPO_PATH/rhdm-7.0.0.GA-maven-repository/maven-repository/
- After you finish applying all relevant updates, start Red Hat Decision Manager and Decision Server and log in to Decision Central.
Verify that all project data is present and accurate in Decision Central, and in the top-right corner of the Decision Central window, click your profile name and click About to verify the updated product version number.
If you encounter any patching errors or notice any missing data in Decision Central, you can restore the contents in the
backup
folder within therhdm-$VERSION-patch
folder to revert the patch update tool changes. You can also re-install the relevant release artifacts from your previous version of Red Hat Decision Manager in the Red Hat Customer Portal. After restoring your previous distribution, you can try again to run the patch update.
Chapter 4. Additional resources
Appendix A. Versioning information
Documentation last updated on: Monday, October 1, 2018.