Once you have installed the Vyatta system, you'll probably want to check for updates. If you're a Vyatta subscription customer, you'll want to also consult the instructions in the support knowledge base or contact Vyatta support if you have any problems.

For users of the Vyatta Community Edition, the instructions below describe two ways to upgrade: using package upgrades or using the Live CD. For the upgrading the subscription edition, consult the subscription knowledge base.

Upgrading Using Package Repositories

Configuring Package Repositories
Vyatta software can be updated using Vyatta's online package archive server. First, make sure that your system has connectivity to the Internet and access to a DNS server (see the documentation for complete configuration information).

Second, configure your system to point to the desired Vyatta package distribution. You may want to select early access to features in testing or access to only stable features. The most stable distribution is, of couse, named stable. The testing distribution, on the other hand, is composed of packages in various states of pre-release testing. This is roughly equivalent to "beta" code. If you are interested in previewing the latest community edition packages, then this distribution is for you. You can specify more than one distribution in order to pick the latest from the union of all of them. See Understanding Package Repositories for more information and recommendations.

Upgrading the Full Suite of Packages in the Latest Version

Make sure your version is configured for the desired archive (see above). Also, make sure that your configuration is backed up to storage outside of your Vyatta system. This procedure should be done from an attached keyboard/monitor or from a serial port.

To update, type:

full-upgrade

Note: There may be some warnings emitted during this procedure--they are
normal. If there are any prompts during the upgrade, the normal choice
is to pick the default (that is, simply press enter). Log in as user
root (default password vyatta ). At the end of this procedure, the
system will prompt for a reboot. In most instances, this reboot will be
necessary to complete the upgrade.

Note: You will be warned during the execution of full-upgrade if your system has extra packages that aren't in the new release. You will be prompted, asking if you want to remove these packages. If you don't, these differences will show up when you run "show version all" from the CLI. They may also affect the behavior of your system.

To upgrade the subscription edition, consult the subscription knowledge base.

Upgrading Using the Live CD

This will be a "clean install" with everything but the configuration wiped clean. You should do this only if you a) haven't installed additional packages beyond the standard Vyatta release; and b) have your configuration file or on a floppy disk, or you simply don't need to preserve the config file.

After burning the CD which you can download from the Vyatta web site, boot it on your system. Log in to the system as root with password vyatta and type:

install-system

More detail on doing a "clean install" is available on the How To Install page.

Update FAQs

1. During the update the process seems to hang for a long time while it's updating Openswan. Is this a bug? No, the system is trying to generate a crypto key and it needs enough random entropy in order to do so. If the system has just been rebooted, it may not have built up enough entropy to satisfy the requirements of the keygen process. As a result, the system waits until it has accumulated enough entropy to get a random key. Just wait for a while. Gently typing characters on the keyboard (not Ctrl-C) may help speed this.

2. During the update it asks me whether I want to replace a cron file. What is the right answer? The right answer is the default which is to keep the current file.