Netsight Virtual Appliance Operating System Upgrade?

[jeronimo]

Does an upgrade BIN file actually upgrade the whole virtual appliance including the OS, or am I stuck with the old OS and only the software on it is upgraded?

IMHO the advantage of using a provided OS would be that I don't have to care about it but the manufacturer does. I however have the feeling that some manufacturers provide the virtual appliances with the argument that's it's much easier, but foremost to them, because it probably saves them support costs.

Which is true in this case? Can I be certain that the OS is safe and up-to-date? We are talking about a network management platform after all.

Can I run updates against the Ubuntu online repos without losing support? (Of course I won't dist-upgrade.)

[James_A]

I've run apt-get upgrades without any ill effect on my NAC and NMS virtual appliances. The only package that doesn't get upgraded is snmpd, which is good because that's been customised.

[TylerMarcotte]

In general it won't upgrade the OS itself (dist-upgrade as you said) but it will upgrade packages. As part of our release cycles we also run vulnerability scans against each appliance. If there is an open vulnerability it is generally announced on the web site with a timeline when it is patched well.

I wouldn't recommend running a manual update against the packages as sometimes there are differences with newer software that may cause issues. With that said, only Extreme supported software should be running on the appliances. No other scripts or software should be run on them.

Hopefully that helps.

Tyler

[Matthew_Hum1]

Yes, the BIN file for Netsight or any of the virtual appliances will upgrade system packages on the appliance. I believe it says as such when you read the upgrade output.