For BES Client upgrade fixlets, the fixlet description says “You must upgrade your Relays before upgrading your Clients.”. Can I upgrade a client to 9.5.7 but have its Relay & Root remain on 9.5.4? Or can a Client never be a higher version than its Relay & Root server?
Here is the answer we have from an experienced IBM BigFix Professional Services guru:
So if that is the case “Do not allow your BigFix client versions to exceed your Relay or Server version”, why does the BES Client upgrade fixlet for 9.5.7 only have a relevancy check that the Client’s Relay is >= v9.5 and not that it is = 9.5.7?
Many customers run in this configuration, especially as new OS’s come out and you need a newer version of a client to run on that OS but can’t upgrade your root server.
We do test forward and backward compatibility but the fixlets try and enforce the best possible scenario and we will present things as best practice cases.
You should always endeavor to have the Relays at the same level as the Root Server. That is really good practice especially as if there are any vulnerabilities you upgraded your Root Server for, they share code with Relays. Clients can work all over the place generally but the official support policy might be different.
As to the relevance, it is generally because the 9.5 family works best together (and the 9.2 family works best together) that the condition is that way. The root server or relay being at least 9.5 is the best scenario for the agent as its in that family of products. That doesn’t mean the same as “officially supported” however.
Hi AlanM, In my scenario, my Relays and Root servers are all the same version (v9.5.4) but due to a Client bug, I’d like to upgrade some of my Clients to 9.5.7. There are no concerns with that with the Client being newer than the Relay and Root?
From a functional standpoint that is fine by the Development side of things.
I honestly can’t state the support policy but if your family is 9.5 then I believe its within it.
Be aware that the clients on the relays won’t upgrade with the fixlet (the pair should be the same version)
understood. thanks much.