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Upgrade considerations for configurations with classic policies

December 14, 2023

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Classic policies are deprecated from NetScaler release 12.0 build 56.20. Starting with release 13.1, classic policy support is removed from some of the features. To know the complete list of features or commands that aren’t supported from release 13.1 release, see Table 2 in Notice of Status Change Announcement for NetScaler Classic Policy Based Features and Functionalities.

As a prerequisite for upgrading to release 13.1 or later, we recommend you to convert the classic policies to advanced policies for the features that are supported by the NSPEPI tool. To know the features that are supported by the NSPEPI tool, see Commands or features handled by the nspepi conversion tool. If you do not convert to advanced policies before the upgrade, then the upgrade fails due to invalid configuration.

Important:

Before you upgrade to release 13.1 or later, we recommend you to run the preconfiguration check tool. This tool ensures that your configuration does not contain commands related to the deprecated or removed features. If there are any commands related to the deprecated or removed features, the tool throws an error and the configuration might be lost. We recommend you to download the latest version of the preconfiguration check tool from the public GitHub link - https://github.com/citrix/ADC-scripts/tree/master/nspepi.

For more information, see the Preconfiguration check tool before upgrade.

If there are any errors as part of the preconfiguration check, we recommend you to use the nspepi tool to convert the invalid configurations to valid configurations. Download the latest version of the nspepi tool from the public GitHub link - https://github.com/citrix/ADC-scripts/tree/master/nspepi. For more information on converting policy expressions using the nspepi tool, see Converting policy expressions using NSPEPI tool.

If you miss converting the classic policies before the upgrade, you can choose to convert to advanced policies during the upgrade. As part of the upgrade, you can choose one of the options described in the following table while running the ./installns command.

Option	Description
No option	If there are any errors as part of the preconfiguration check, the installation stops. You must convert classic policies to advanced policies to proceed with the upgrade process.
-M	NSPEPI tool is run as part of the installation and converts classic policies to advanced policies.
-Y	This option isn’t recommended. In this option, the preconfiguration check is skipped and therefore any valid configuration might get lost.

To convert classic policies to advanced policies during the upgrade, select the -M option. The -M option triggers the NSPEPI tool and updates the existing ns.conf file with the modified configuration. The old configuration is present at /nsconfig/ns.conf_old for future reference.

./installns -M`
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If you find any error during the advanced policy conversion, contact NetScaler support.

The nspepi tool does not handle the conversion for a few commands or features. See Commands or features not handled by the nspepi conversion tool for the complete list.

Perform the following steps for each different configuration that you need to convert:

Run the nspepi tool on Citrix ADC release 12.1 or 13.0 to convert the ns.conf file. The NSPEPI tool generates two files with prefixes new_ and warn_. The file with the new_ prefix contains the converted configuration and the file with the warn_ prefix contains the warnings and errors.
Check the file with the warn_ prefix and fix errors (if any).
Test the converted configuration. Apply the converted configuration using one of the following options:
1. Run the clear config -f basic command and then source the converted configuration by running the source /nsconfig/new_ns.conf command.
2. Remove the classic commands manually (by unbinding and removing policies) and then source the converted configuration by running the source /nsconfig/new_ns.conf command.
  
  Note:
  
  You might see “Resource already exists” errors for the configurations that aren’t cleared using the clear config -f basic command. You can ignore these errors.
Save the configuration.

After successfully converting invalid configurations to valid configurations, verify if there are any other prerequisites and then proceed to upgrade. For more information, see Upgrade and downgrade a NetScaler appliance.

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Upgrade considerations for configurations with classic policies

December 14, 2023

Contributed by:

December 14, 2023

Contributed by:

Upgrade considerations for configurations with classic policies

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