Showing posts with label CU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CU. Show all posts

Friday 25 May 2012

SP2010 April 2012 CU warning

Problem:  I waited 3 weeks after the SP2010 April 2012 CU was release to install on my dev VM thinking it must be safe.  Installed and ran psconfig to discover my User Profile Service (UPS) is not working.

Initial Hypothesis:  As I can't fix the UPS using the UPS rational guide or the MS UPS post I rolled back and reapplied the April patch UPS is working.  I guess this must be a corner test issue but regardless I can't replicate te problem. 

Resolution: MS have pulled the April CU, this has happened twice before with other CU releases since SP1 and subsequently an update April 2012 CU binary patch is probably going to be re-released.  So for now stay off the April 2012 SharePoint 2010 CU as of 28 May 2012.  If you want to patch use the February 2012 CU (providing you need it).

Other:
June 2012 CU for SP2010 is the latest patch as of 03 July 2012.

Also see:
Patch Sp2010 farms

Saturday 25 February 2012

Quick Way to Verify your Build

Problem: Going to a new client you need to work out each of their enviroments, this can be done using CA, PowerShell and T-SQL.

Inital Hypothesis:  Create a PowerShell script that crawls and maps the farm, and outputs the results.  This should examine all the WFE and application servers and the SQL Servers.  If should report on the OS, SQL Server and SharePoint. 

Resolution:  Until someone builds a better flushed out script, I am looking at the local instance of SQL (default) and the SharePoint farm.  This script has been tested to run on a full standalone machine containing both SQL Server and SP2010.
Additional work could be done to crawl all servers in the farm and output the results.  As BGInfo gives the local admin all the network and OS data, this script does it for the application software.

Additional work to do to this script is to loop thru all the SQL instances remotely, display a report or even generate a nice diagram and potentially change the background screen save with all the information on the server containing Central Admin.

In the screen shot above: SQL Server build versions 10.50.2500.0 is SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1; SP2010 build version 14.0.6109.5002  is CU August 2011.
GetSPInfo.ps download.



Updated: 19 July 2012 - Add the line tot he script to show SQL 2012 under the version:
11 {[string]$SqlInfo.SQL_Version = "SQL Server 2012"}

Updated: 24/02/2012 - I had problem in UAT where I was getting stange behaviour and I releaised somebody had changed the time on one of 10 SharePoint servers causing me problems.  The script below verifies the TimeZone for servers in your farm. 
 
 
More Info:
SP2010 build number by Dave Coleman.

Patching a Production SharePoint Farm with CU or SP

Problem: How do you keep a farm up to date but stable whereby patch don’t cause problems to your users or applications in a SharePoint 2010 farm.

Initial Hypothesis: Various software parts are in the SharePoint farm excluding 3rd party add-ins. Windows 2008 R2 gets patch, Cumulative updates and service packs. The 3 products to upgrade from Microsoft are:
• Windows;
• SQL Server; and
• SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft provides 3 mechanisms for patching:
1. Windows Updates are configured to pull down the updates and then prompt or install the updates automatically.
2. Manual Patching by downloading and executing the patch as directed by Microsoft.
3. Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) where a central server pulls all the patches and pushes the patches to the servers.

Resolution: Let patches unless marked as critical from Microsoft be release for a few weeks (4-8 is a good number for me) before implementing them. Roll out to test on a Monday, roll-out the patches on Wednesday and Friday night role out the patches to production.

Patch Windows, SQL & SharePoint regularly.

Windows 2008 must patch the servers on a weekly basis using the WSUS approach in a staggered phased approach as described above and currently done. Also ensure IIS application applicable patches are installed.

SQL patching should be done manually unless there are multiple instances which is only the case in the largest of farms. This should be setup manually but rolled out using WSUS.

SharePoint Patching should not be auto scheduled for deployment. An administrator/Infrastructure should periodically decide on a patch level and apply it via the WSUS service. This can be done manually but as it takes time to perform on each server and as the environment grows this can take time. We also need to watch out for running the configuration as this can take time on big content databases. Also this can be staggered so we install the patch but the content databases are staggered as to when they are updated with the new schema.

Note: An automatic update will install the binary files on the farm servers, but you must complete the software update by running the upgrade on the servers. Technet (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ff806329(office.14).aspx)

Problem: Updating SharePoint 2010 using Cumulative Updates (CU) ensures your farm has bugs and the latest known security vulnerabilities are closed to attack. Update too early after the patch is release and you risk causing a major disruption to your farm.

Initial Hypothesis: Patches need to be implemented to ensure the farm is secure, stable and as performant as possible. I recommend letting new patches wait for 4 weeks to ensure the major bugs are discovered and potentially corrected by Microsoft.

Since the August 2011 Cumulative Update, Microsoft releases a single package that covers all the SharePoint versions (Foundation, Server), only the applicable patches (.msp files) parts that are needed on your farm are installed. You can still download the CU as a smaller package if you select the Foundation CU. The Cumulative Update contains all hotfixes since SharePoint 2010 was released.

Note that the SharePoint Server 2010 CU contains the SharePoint Foundation CU also, since the August 2011 Microsoft has taken this approach so you only need to install the CU that matches your edition. You no longer need to install the foundation and then the Server edition.

It is recommended that SP1 be installed before the CU however, if you don’t it will include the SP1 fixes. “Software updates include any update, update rollup, service pack, feature pack, critical update, security update, or hotfix”, Technet (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847).

Resolution: Plan (learn), backup (prepare), test, implement and verify (validate) is the basic testing plan suggested by Microsoft.

Deploying updates in a SharePoint Server 2010 environment consists of: downloading the binaries, installing (also referred to as updating) and upgrading by running the configuration wizard (not always). Ensure all servers in the farm (excluding the database servers) have been patched/updated before upgrading (running the configuration wizard (psconfig)).

Validate the CU upgrade:
PS>(get-spfarm).buildversion
Check if psconfig needs to be run:
PS> (get-spserver $env:computername).NeedsUpgrade
if True then
psconfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force

Ensure the version is the version you are expecting after the patch.
Example of SP2010 SP1 with August 2012 CU:
Major  Minor  Build  Revision
-----  -----  -----  --------
14     0      6126   5000


CA > Upgrade and Migration > Check upgrade status


Update 17/03/2014: SharePoint 2013 with SP1 applied results in 15.0.4569.1000

More Info:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/stefan_gossner/archive/2011/12/14/december-2011-cu-for-sharepoint-2010-has-been-released.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847
December 2011 CU for SharePoint 2010 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2597014
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ff806329(office.14).aspx
List of SP CU downloads and their build numbers.
PSConfig switches explained by Benjamin Athawes

Example from Benjamin Athawes
Upgrading product version (Major e.g. MOSS 2007 to SP2010 or SP2013 upgrades):

psconfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace v2v -wait

Applying a patch (minor e.g. CU or Service Pack):

psconfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait

Friday 1 July 2011

SP1 and SP2010 June 2011 CU

Overview:  There has been a lot of chatter on twitter about SP1.  I incorrectly installed SP1 on a dev machine and after reading "So what the Fuss? - Service Pack 1 and June 2011 CU for SharePoint 2010" from Spencer Harbar I thought I'd summerise the correct approach as detailed in Spencer's article.
Notes:
  • MS has released SP1 for SP2010 and June 2011 CU on the same day 27 June 2011. 
  • There are seperate downloads for SPF (SharePoint Foundation) and SPS (SharePoint Server) updates, you should install both.  Install the SPF update first followed by the SPS update.
  • June 2011 CU is not part of SP2010 SP1, only install the June 2011CU if directed by MS and wait a month to see the fall out regardless.
  • SP1 contains all CU updates including the April 2011 CU plus some other updates not in any CU.
From Spencer Harbor's blog regarding installation order "I approach the installation like this:
  1. SPF SP1
  2. SPF language packs SP1 (as needed)
  3. SPS SP1
  4. SPS language packs SP1 (as needed)
  5. OWA SP1 (as needed)
If it asks you to reboot, reboot once after the installs, not each time it asks. Then of course you run PSConfig on each server in the farm.".

As always test updates on your DTAP environment pre release onto production.

More Info:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2011/06/29/sharepoint-2010-sp1-and-the-june-cumulative-update-for-sharepoint-2010.aspx
New features added by SharePoint 2010 SP1
http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=444
Patch SP2010 farms

Wednesday 22 June 2011

SP2010 CU April 2011

Overview: Cumulative Update for SharePoint 2010 is the latest CU for SP2010 Server. The CU can be applied to an existing far or added be part of the install using AutoSPInstaller for new installations.

SharePoint Server 2010 cumulative update package  can be found here.  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2512800

Installation:  You need to request the file from the link list above.  Download the file to your local machines (It's about 600MB).
For an update simple extract the from the file 432209_intl_x64_zip.exe using the cmd>432209_intl_x64_zip.exe /extract:.\

 If you want to include the CU in a new install using AutoSPInstaller, you will need to extract the .msp files from office2010-kb2512800-fullfile-x64-glb.exe /extract:.\
And place the msp files inside the approriate directory in you AutoSPInstaller directory.