Upgrading Liberty on distributed operating systems

You can use Installation Manager to upgrade your Liberty edition to an offering with more functionality.

Before you begin

  • Make sure that your Installation Manager preferences are pointing to web-based or local repositories that contain the appropriate upgrades for the offering. For example, if you are upgrading from the online product repositories, use the repository for the edition that you are upgrading to.
  • If an interim fix is already installed on the offering that you are trying to upgrade but that specific interim fix is not applicable to the offering to which you want to upgrade, the upgrade will be blocked by Installation Manager. An error message will be generated that indicates that the interim fix is not applicable to the offering. Remove the interim fix before upgrading.

About this task

You can use Installation Manager to upgrade WebSphere® Application Server Liberty offerings in the following paths:
  • WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core to WebSphere Application Server Liberty
  • WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core to WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Liberty
  • WebSphere Application Server Liberty to WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Liberty

All Liberty features in your existing installation are compatible with the upgraded installation. Any individual features remain installed when you upgrade.

Important: Some edition-specific addons, such as the feature bundle addons that are included in fix pack 16.0.0.2 and later, might not be compatible with the upgraded edition and are therefore removed. For example, by default the Liberty Core edition is installed with the libertyCoreBundle addon, which contains all features that apply to the Liberty Core edition. If you upgrade to a different Liberty edition, this addon is removed. During the upgrade process, you can install the edition-specific bundle that applies to your upgraded installation.

Procedure

Choose one of the following options to upgrade your installation.

  • Upgrade your installation by using the Installation Manager GUI.
    1. Stop all servers and applications on the WebSphere Application Server Liberty installation that is being upgraded.
    2. Start Installation Manager.
    3. Click Install.
      Note: If you are prompted to authenticate, use the IBM® ID and password that you registered with on the program website.

      Installation Manager searches its defined repositories for available packages.

    4. Select the name of the Liberty offering to which you want to upgrade and the appropriate version, and click Next.
    5. Accept the terms in the license agreements, and click Next.
    6. Complete the following actions.
      1. Select Use the existing package group.
      2. Select the package group of the product that you want to upgrade.
        Important: If you select an existing group that cannot be upgraded to the product that you are currently installing, an error will occur.
      3. Click Next.
    7. Select any features that you want to include in the upgraded installation and click Next.
    8. Review the Liberty addon and feature update options.

      Installation Manager updates any installed Liberty addons and features to the new level. You can optionally choose to update your addons and features from the online IBM WebSphere Liberty Repository.

    9. Accept the license agreement, and click Next.
    10. Review the addon and feature summary information, and click Next.
    11. Review the summary information, and click Install.
      • If the upgrade is successful, the program displays a message indicating that installation is successful.
        Note: The program might also display important post-installation instructions as well.
      • If the installation is not successful, click View Log File to troubleshoot the problem.
    12. Click Finish.
    13. Click File > Exit to close Installation Manager.
  • Upgrade your installation from the command line.
    1. Log on to your system.
    2. Change to the eclipse/tools subdirectory in the directory where you installed Installation Manager.
    3. List the installed packages.
      For LINUX platformsFor Solaris platformsFor HP UNIX platformsFor AIX platforms 
      ./imcl listInstalledPackages -long
      For Windows platforms 
      imcl.exe listInstalledPackages -long
    4. Use the imcl install command to upgrade the installation to a different edition in the same installation location:
      For LINUX platformsFor Solaris platformsFor HP UNIX platformsFor AIX platforms 
      ./imcl install com.ibm.websphere.liberty.ND 
-properties user.addon=addon_name,user.feature=featureA_name,,featureB_name
-repositories repository_URL_or_path 
-installationDirectory /opt/IBM/WebSphere/Liberty 
-acceptLicense -showProgress
      For Windows platforms 
      imcl install com.ibm.websphere.liberty.ND
-properties user.addon=addon_name,user.feature=featureA_name,,featureB_name 
-repositories repository_URL_or_path 
-installationDirectory "C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\Liberty" 
-acceptLicense -showProgress