This article contains instructions for upgrading an on-prem VT Writer Deployment to a newer release.

Download details for each upgrade are emailed to all VisibleThread customers as soon as the upgrade becomes available. If you are missing details of where to retrieve an upgrade please mail support@visiblethread.com.

Windows, Red Hat and Ubuntu (virtual appliance) deployments each have a different upgrade mechanism. Each one will be covered below.

 

N.B. We recommend you test the upgrade in a test environment prior to upgrading your production system. We also recommend taking a backup of your system prior to upgrading.

 

Upgrading a VT Writer Ubuntu deployment

 

NOTE: We recommend that you take a snapshot and/or a backup of the database before upgrading. To do that run

/home/visiblethread/VisibleThreadTools/vt-backup.sh

Ubuntu upgrade files have an extension of ‘.tar.gz’ so an example file might be ‘readability-upgrade-5.0.2.tar.gz’.

When you have downloaded your upgrade file, it needs to be added to the /home/visiblethread/VisibleThreadTools/upgrades folders on the VisibleThread Virtual Appliance.

Uploading the upgrade file to the Virtual Appliance

You can upload the upgrade file to the Virtual Appliance via SSH (Secure Shell) using port 22.

The easiest way to do this is to use one of a number of freely available tools such as the FileZilla client (http://filezillaproject.org/) or WinSCP (http://www.winscp.net). The next section outlines the detailed steps to complete this:

1. Connect to your Virtual Appliance using the following details:
   • IP address
   • Username: visiblethread – Password: password (unless changed)
   • Port: 22
2. Once connected, navigate to the /home/visiblethread/VisibleThreadTools/upgrades folder.
3. Upload the upgrade file to this folder. 

Important - Upgrading to VT Writer 4+

As of VT Writer 4+ the application now requires Java OpenJDK 17 to install the upgrade. Please follow the instruction below to get Java OpenJDK 17 installed prior to installing the upgrade.

# Update repo and install Java Openjdk 17
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y openjdk-17-jdk-headless

 

Once Java 17 is successfully installed, check to ensure the right version is in use:

 

# Check that the OS is now using Java OpenJDK 17
java -version

 

It should show:

 

If java version is still 1.8.0 please run the command below to update:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

# This will display a selection screen. Please press the number key repersenting
# Java OpenJDK 17 and press Enter.
# Confirm the version change

java -version

 

Now that the java version is updated you can continue with the upgrade.

 

Applying the upgrade to the Virtual Appliance

The VT Writer server contains an upgrade script that will perform an upgrade of the application. 
To run this script, log on to the server console and execute the following commands:

cd /home/visiblethread/VisibleThreadTools 
sudo ./vt-upgrade.sh upgrades/<upgradefilename.tar.gz> 

Note: You may be prompted for the “visiblethread” user password when running this command.
This will extract the archive, deploy the release files and restart the application.

Verifying the upgrade is successful

To verify the upgrade was successful take the following steps:

1. Ensure the version for each of the following (run the commands below) matches the VT API version in your upgrade email e.g. "the latest version of the VT API is 1.0.1":

• dpkg -s visiblethread-api

1.  

2. Go to the VT Writer application in your browser, and verify the version number matches the version in the subject line of your upgrade email e.g. "VT Writer 4.0.3 Upgrade". The version number should be displayed on the login screen.
3. Sign in to the VT Writer application and upload a document for analysis, verify the analysis completes.
4. If you are using the Email service send an email with a document attached (Word or PDF document) to the email address you have designated for readability scans.
5. Verify you get a response with the document analysis results.

The upgrade process generates a log file in the following location:

 /home/visiblethread/VisibleThreadTools/upgradelog.txt 

You should send this file to support@visiblethread.com and they will verify that the upgrade was successful.

 

Upgrading a VT Writer Red Hat deployment

Upgrades are distributed in the form of new rpm packages. You will have been provided details of where to download the upgrade from VisibleThread support via e-mail. Mail support@visiblethread.com if you have not received these details.

NOTE: We recommend that you take a snapshot and/or a backup of the database before upgrading. To do that run:

/opt/visiblethread/VisibleThreadTools/vt-backup.sh

Important - Upgrading to VT Writer 4+

As of VT Writer 4+ the application now requires Java OpenJDK 17 to install the upgrade. Please follow the instruction below to get Java OpenJDK 17 installed prior to installing the upgrade.

# Update repo and install Java Openjdk 17
sudo dnf update
sudo yum install java-17-openjdk

# Check that the OS is now using Java OpenJDK 17
java -version

 

It should show:

 

If java version is still 1.8.0 please run the command below to update:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

# This will display a selection screen. 
# Please press the number key representing Java OpenJDK 17 and press Enter.
# Confirm the version change

java -version

Now that the java version is updated you can continue with the upgrade.

 

Download the new .rpm files to your Red Hat server, and then install them :

sudo yum install --setopt=clean_requirements_on_remove=0 visiblethread-api-X.Y.Z.rpm
sudo yum install --setopt=clean_requirements_on_remove=0 visiblethread-readability-X.Y.Z.rpm

Verifying the upgrade is successful

To verify the upgrade was successful:

1. Check the version of the visiblethread packages using yum. Ensure the visiblethread-api version number matches the VT API version in your upgrade email e.g. "the latest version of the VT API is 1.0.1". Ensure that the visiblethread-readability version number matches the subject line of your upgrade email e.g. "VT Writer 4.0.2 Upgrade". 

• yum info visiblethread-api 
  yum info visiblethread-readability

1.  

2. Go to the VT Writer application in your browser, and verify the version number matches the version in the subject line of your upgrade email e.g. "VT Writer 4.0.3 Upgrade". The version number should be displayed on the login screen.
3. Sign in to the VT Writer application and upload a document for analysis, verify the analysis completes.
4. If you are using the Email service send an email with a document attached (Word or PDF document) to the email address you have designated for readability scans.
5. Verify you get a response with the document analysis results.

 

Upgrading a VT Writer Windows deployments

Download and install the executable file supplied in the email you received. Simply follow the on screen instructions within the installer window.