It is highly recommended as a best practice to first deploy the new version of Devolutions Server to a staging instance and verify its stability before deploying it to your whole organization. If you do not have a staging instance, we recommend a limited roll-out to ensure the workflow is supported to your satisfaction prior to impacting your whole team.
Install the proper version of Devolutions Server Console before upgrading the Devolutions Server web application. It is available on the Download page.
The following steps are intended to be achieved on a single server or a basic topology. If your environment differs from these topologies, please contact us and we will guide you with your Devolutions Server upgrade.
Workflow
The following is a list of recommendations and steps to follow before proceeding with the upgrade:
- We highly recommend to test the upgrade process in a staging/test environment before upgrading your production instance.
- The upgrade steps will be performed with the Devolutions Server Console. You will need to upgrade your copy to the latest version that is matched with the target version of Devolutions Server that you are preparing to install. Please follow the steps carefully.
- If you have elected to use Integrated Security for connecting to the database, you must perform the upgrade using a Windows user account that has full rights on the database. Ensure that the IIS Application Pool Identity and Scheduler accounts have enough privileges on the database. After an upgrading to a new version, new permissions are possibly required. Please contact us about the new permissions list.
- If you have set the Security Provider on your current Devolutions Server, specific operations will need to be done before the upgrade. Please contact us for further details.
- We recommend doing a backup of the Encryption Keys before any operation that could modify the information of the database or before the upgrade of Devolutions Server. Protect the Encryption Key file in a safe to avoid data loss if Devolutions Server has to be restored.
Preparation phase
- Ensure that the instance users have the offline mode enabled and that they all perform a full refresh of the cache (Ctrl+F5).
- Have your team switch to the offline mode in Remote Desktop Manager, allowing them to work while the system is down.
- Update the maximal version of Remote Desktop Manager in Administration – System Settings – Version Management – Maximal version, if this option was set before the upgrade.
Phase 1
- Perform a full backup of the database, take precautions against that backup file being deleted by a maintenance plan.
- Archive the content of the web application folder containing the Devolutions Server instance, move to a safe place.
- Install the proper version of Devolutions Server Console. In each of the sub-topics related to a specific version of Devolutions Server, you will find the version of the client that you need.
- Devolutions Server Console must be run with elevated privileges.
Phase 2
- Open the Devolutions Server Console.
- Select the instance that you wish to upgrade.
- Set the instance in Offline Mode with the Go Offline button. On a High Availability/Load Balancing topology, all instances must be set to Offline mode before starting the upgrade process.
Server – Go Offline - Click Update.
Devolutions Server Console - Select the upgrade source. You can either use the latest latest or stable release that is available online or specify the path to a ZIP file that you have downloaded yourself. Use this for beta releases or for earlier versions.
Select Update Source File - Click Next.
If you upgrade from version 2021.2.14 or older to version 2022.1 or higher, you will have to provide the access URI to reach the Devolutions Server web page.
- Review the summary and click Update if you are satisfied.
Summary
The process will now begin. After completion, a message will appear to inform you that the operation was successful.
Final phase
- The Backup Folder contains information about the configuration of the Devolutions Server instance prior to the upgrade. After a successful upgrade, you must ensure the content is either moved to a safe place, or deleted.
- Our support department gets more and more urgent requests for assistance because of a rogue admin upgrading his own copy of Remote Desktop Manager and introducing a schema update for some new feature. This may prevent other users from using the system. We strongly recommend setting both the Maximal and Minimal versions allowed to connect to your instance.
- If you have elected to use the Integrated Security for connecting to the database in the Database tab, ensure that the IIS Application Pool Identity and Scheduler accounts have enough privileges on the database.
- Have a user upgrade his workstation with the version of Remote Desktop Manager supported by the Devolutions Server version and test connectivity with the server instance.
- Have computers running PowerShell scripts to update the Devolutions.PowerShell module version supported by the Devolutions Server version and test the script results.
- When you are satisfied with your tests, have the rest of the staff upgrade to the same version of Remote Desktop Manager.
- Update the Maximal/Minimal version of Remote Desktop Manager in Administration – System Settings – Version Management.