Upgrade a Yellowfin WAR Deployment

Who needs this article?

If you've deployed a Yellowfin instance into an external application server in the form of a WAR file, you'll want to follow this article to upgrade your instance.  Upgrading is an important part of maintaining a healthy Yellowfin installation.

How do I upgrade?

Yellowfin installations into external application servers require a bit more legwork to upgrade.  While this may seem like a daunting task, don't let it prevent you from keeping your software up to date!  And as always, follow our Best Practices for upgrading!  Backup, deploy test environments, and test test test!

The first step will be to go over to our Latest Builds and download the Update Installer and the Full Installer for the version of Yellowfin you want to update to.

If you remember your initial install, you should have done a full installation to acquire the WAR file that you've since deployed into your application server.  If you followed the process linked, you've probably already removed the initial installation directory.  Don't worry!  If you have, we will re-create it.  Note: if you still have the directory, skip ahead to "Upgrading The Yellowfin Configuration Database".

I Don't Have My Initial Installation Folder!

If you've removed your previous directory, go ahead and find a full installation file for your current running version and build.  You can find this by visiting your Yellowfin login page in your web browser, and adding /info.jsp to the URL.

The above information shows my version as 7.1 and my build number (Current Code Version) as 20170202.  In order to find an older build of Yellowfin, you'll have to search for the "Master Change Logs" of your version.  Do this in the Yellowfin Community.  (If you have trouble getting the exact version and build you require, open a ticket here and we'll get you squared away)

Once you've gotten your full installer, go ahead and perform a full installation using HSQL as the database.  This is because we're going to point this installation at your current Yellowfin Configuration Database so we can update the Database.

Startup your new Yellowfin Installation to allow it to perform the initial setup of your install folder.

Upgrading The Yellowfin Configuration Database

At this point we want to verify that this installation is pointing at your existing Yellowfin Configuration Database.

The web.xml configuration file tells Yellowfin where its Configuration Database is. This will be located in y our deploy warfile folder under WEB-INF/web.xml.  The JDBC Connection parameters we need here are JDBC,DriverClass, JDBCUrl, JDBCUser, and JDBCPassword.  In my test this is lines 107 - 128.  You will want to copy these settings for use during this process.

In your Installation Folder, edit the web.xml found in /appserver/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/web.xml.  You'll want to replace the existing settings here with the settings copied above.  This will point the installation at your existing configuration database.

Once done you can verify success by starting the instance, logging in, and loading some reports you"ve created.  After doing so, we can begin the YF Config DB update.

Shut down Yellowfin.  Now you can run your update installer, pointing at your Installation Folder (NOT your war deployment).  This will update your YF Config DB.  If you encounter errors, feel free to contact Yellowfin Support.  Do not start Yellowfin at this point.

Upgrading The Yellowfin Codebase (Application)

Now that we've upgraded your YF Config DB to the desired version and build number, you'll need to acquire a war file with the same codebase (version/build).  To do so, go ahead and do a full install of the same version you installed the update for.  At this point, you can remove your other installation folder if desired, it will not be used again.

Run your full installation, choosing HSQL for the database.  After successful installation, you'll now have an installation folder containing a yellowfin.war file.  This is what you'll use to deploy Yellowfin into the application server of your choosing.

The final step to your update is to edit the web.xml file inside of the war archive and insert your JDBC Connection parameters that we saved above.  To do so, you'll need to extract the war file or use an archive manager to edit the files within.  The web.xml file will be located at WEB-INF/web.xml inside of the war file.  Replace the following parameters in the web.xml to point your war file to your YF Config DB: JDBCDriver, JDBCUrl, JDBCUser, JDBCPassword.

Finally, deploy your war file onto your application server, start Yellowfin, and enjoy!