FAQ

Can I use updates without a paid subscription?

You can use the free trial subscription for 15 days. After that, you need a paid subscription.

Find out more about the EULA license.

What benefits do I get from a paid subscription?

A paid subscription allows you to:

• Deploy updates into production immediately, without waiting for an open source release.
• Receive 24x7 support from WSO2 to resolve issues quickly. 
• Help fund our ongoing R&D and operations.

Read more about WSO2 subscription.

Do I need a key to unlock updates for production?

No. We trust our customers to adhere to the license terms. We make the terms clear to avoid accidental violations and reserve the right to remove access to updates or take other means to enforce the license against intentional violators.

Find out more about the EULA license.

Can I choose which updates to install?

Yes, but only via a custom channel. You cannot choose the updates you want to install via the default channels (i.e., full and security). You can choose when to push a (coherent) set of updates into production.

WSO2 tests and certifies each update on systems where all previous updates are installed. It is not practical to test every arbitrary combination of updates. Therefore, we cannot recommend you to choose which updates to install unless you have a custom channel.

What license are WSO2 updates on?

We are releasing WSO2 updates with a commercial EULA license .

How frequently is it recommended to get updates?

WSO2 releases frequent WUM updates with bug fixes and security fixes. It is recommended to get these updates to your development environments weekly or bi-weekly.

When it comes to production environments, if there are urgent security fixes, WSO2 will announce them to customers via support JIRAs. In addition, WSO2 announces all security updates, if any, to the customers monthly. It is recommended to update your production environments monthly.

Should I test my updates?

WSO2 tests all updates in systems where all previous updates are also installed. But, it is not recommended to install your updates directly to a production environment. First, install them to a development, staging, or testing environment that has the same product distribution that runs on your production environment and test the updates.

What is the WSO2 recommended approach to run In-Place in a Production environment?

1. First, run the In-Place update tool in a lower environment.
2. Check for any merge conflicts.

3. If there are any conflicts, rectify them manually and rerun the tool.

   Conflicts are a very rare case therefore most of the time the tool will finish the run successfully. 

4. Last, upon successfully updating the lower environment, run the in-place updates tool for the same timestamp [./update_linux -t <timestamp>(e.g., ./update_linux -t 1582261435000)] in the production environment rectifying the conflicts encountered previously.

   In distributed setups, it is not recommended to repeat running the tool on all the production nodes. Therefore it is best to use a configuration management tool to manage distributed deployments efficiently.

What are the WSO2 advised configuration management tools to deploy configurations to client nodes?

The Recommended configuration tools to work with when using In-Place updates are Ansible and Puppet.

Ansible resources: 

WSO2 APIM: https://github.com/wso2/ansible-apim/blob/master/README.md

WSO2 EI: https://github.com/wso2/ansible-ei/blob/master/README.md

WSO2 IS: https://github.com/wso2/ansible-is/blob/master/README.md

WSO2 SP: https://github.com/wso2/ansible-sp/blob/master/README.md

Puppet resources:

WSO2 APIM: https://github.com/wso2/puppet-apim/blob/master/README.md

WSO2 EI: https://github.com/wso2/puppet-ei/blob/master/README.md

WSO2 IS: https://github.com/wso2/puppet-is/blob/master/README.md

WSO2 SP:https://github.com/wso2/puppet-sp/blob/master/README.md

How can I get updates if my deployment is not connected to the internet?

Subscribed users can get updates even if the deployment is not connected to the internet using the following ways:

• Using WUM

1. Creating a completed updated distribution - Perform wum updates in a separate server that is connected to the internet and obtain the updated distribution. Next, apply all the configurations and previous customizations (if any) on top of it and apply it to your production environment.
   If you are already using a recommended WSO2 configuration management resources[Refer the question ‘What are the WSO2 recommended configuration management tools to deploy configurations to client nodes? ’], the updated pack should be placed in the ‘ packs’ directory and thereafter, run the Configuration Management tool to ship the updates to your test or development environment. Upon verifying, you can ship the updates to the production environment. 
2. Creating a diff zip file containing only the files been updated - If you only want to apply the files that have been modified from updates, you could use the following command to generate the diff between the latest updated distribution and previous updated/GA distribution.

wum diff <Latest-WUM-updated-distribution.zip> <Previous-WUM-updated-distribution.zip>
E.g., wum diff wso2am-2.5.0+1538333553548.full.zip wso2am-2.5.0+1537333553538.full.zip

Using the generated archive file you could update the distributions of Test and Development environments. After verifying, apply the diff to your production environment.

• Using the In-Place Update tool

Run the In-Place Update tool on a copy of your production distribution in a separate server that is connected to the internet and ship the updated distribution to a dev/test environment using a configuration management tool. Upon verifying changes, apply the updated distribution to the production environment.

How do I know when updates are available?

Available updates, if any, will be shown when you run the in-place update tool. 

If you are using the WUM tool, run the  wum check-update <product> command.

What can I do in case of an issue?

If you encounter any issues when using WSO2 updates,  log a  support JIRA ticket . If you have a free-trial subscription but do not have a support account at WSO2, you can report the issues by  contacting WSO2 via https://wso2.com/contact.

How can I know what changes are included in an update?

You receive an email with information on all the changes included in the new distribution. You also find this information in <PRODUCT_HOME>/updates/summary as a PDF file.

I get an error as 'You do not have an active subscription or the channel does not exist'. What should I do?

First, check whether y ou typed the channel name correctly. If yes, then you should have got your  WSO2 subscription via that given channel name. If you haven't, please contact WSO2.

I get the error as 'invalid credentials. Please enter valid WSO2 credentials'. What should I do?

First, check whether you have given the right credentials. If yes, check whether your password has the $ sign. If it does, escape it using '\'. For example, if your password is 123$abc, you should enter 123\$abc. This is because the $ sign is used for variables in BASH.

Are there any configurations I should do when I have a proxy server/firewall running?

Yes. WUM gets updates by connecting to the  https://api.updates.wso2.com    https://cdn.updates.wso2.com   https://product-dist.wso2.com and  https://wso2.com endpoints in the WSO2 Update service. If your system connects to the Update service through a proxy server/firewall, grant access to these endpoints.

Since WUM is a command-line tool, the proxy should be configured from your command-line as follows: 

export http_proxy=http://username:password@proxyhost:port/