New Features

flexVDI 3.1 comes with the following main features:

New web-based Dashboard! Just point a modern web browser to your flexVDI Manager's IP address and enjoy this new interface. No more installation required.
Many of the components it is based on have been upgraded:
1. QEMU/KVM 2.12.0, based on RHEV 7 packaged version, with small additions.
2. libvirt 4.5.0, as shipped by RHEL 7.6.
3. SPICE server 0.14.0, based on RHEL 7.6 packaged version, with small additions.
Support for Virtio GPU in Linux Guests, with improved stability and performance.
LDAP group search: Configure your Desktop Policies in a group entry for all the users in that group.
Experimental support for Gluster Filesystem. Now you can have hyperconvergence with flexVDI!
New flexVDI Client for Desktops! A fresh, unified interface for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
PCI passthrough in PCI storage devices (e.g. NVMe) that are assigned as Direct Disks.
Many small improvements:
1. Change default PVID in virtual bridges, in case your untagged traffic is not in VLAN 1.
2. OCFS2 packages are not a requirement anymore. They are installed on demand.
3. Improved scalability of flexVDI Manager.

Deprecated Features

The following features have been deprecated in flexVDI 3.1 and you may have to take additional actions in order to successfully upgrade your flexVDI 3.0 platform.

Host VDI Address

Hosts have an IP address and a VDI IP address. This is the address reported to the flexVDI Clients to make the Spice connection. In this way, the service address of the Hosts can be kept hidden to avoid unwanted access attempts. However, the clients still need to be able to reach both the Manager and all the Hosts. The flexVDI Gateway solves this problem by acting as a single entry point to the platform to all your users, so it is the preferred way over using the VDI address.

In flexVDI 3.1 the Host's VDI address is deprecated, and will be removed in a future release. If you are using it, you need to use the flexVDI Gateway instead. Read more about it in its page in the administration guide. Also, the best way to implement the flexVDI Gateway is to install a Webportal appliance.

Upgrade process

Preparation

Upgrading from flexVDI 3.0 to 3.1 can be done with no downtime! However, just in case something goes really wrong, back up your flexVDI Manager Database, as explained in flexVDI Manager Backup.

Just in case I was not clear enough: Back up your flexVDI Manager Database. If you delete your old Manager instance without backing it up, you will have to rebuild your platform configuration by hand.

Upgrade!

Install flexVDI 3.1 in all your hosts. The flexVDI 3.1 installer will detect your current subscription and support contract certificates, so the installation is mostly automatic. If you wish to change your portal credentials or update your contract certificates, do so with flexvdi-config before running the installer.

This will update all the server packages to 3.1, while your Manager instance is still at 3.0. So, now just upgrade it as explained in Updating flexVDI software, and you are done!

At this point, your flexVDI 3.1 platform should be up and running again. However, the old flexVDI Dashboard 3.0 is not compatible with flexVDI Manager 3.1 anymore. Point a modern web browser to the Manager's IP address to access the new web-based Dashboard.

Enjoy your new flexVDI 3.1 platform!!

Reverting the upgrade process

If something goes terribly wrong and you need to revert the installation process to flexVDI 3.0, follow these steps. Read them carefully and do not perform any action that is not explicitly listed here:

In your hosts, uninstall all flexVDI related packages. The OCFS2 kmod package may refuse to uninstall, this is acceptable.
```
# rpm -qa | grep flexvdi | xargs yum remove -y
```
Stop the flexVDI Manager instance, from the host that is currently running it.
```
# virsh destroy flexVDI_Manager
```
Remove the flexVDI 3.1 yum repository file and clean the yum metadata.
```
# rm -f /etc/yum.repos.d/flexvdi-3.1.repo
# yum clean metadata
```
Run the flexVDI 3.0 installer on all your hosts. You may need to downgrade the kernel if you upgraded it to a version that is not supported by flexVDI 3.0.
Run flexvdi-config and:
1. Go to Manager → Install, and follow the steps to install the latest version of flexVDI Manager 3.0.
2. Go to Manager → Password and change the Manager default password.
3. DO NOT perform any other step yet: Register, Move, etc...
Restore your Manager backup: Go to Manager → Restore and follow the instructions.
In all your hosts, start the flexvdi-agent service.
```
# systemctl start flexvdi-agent
```

Contact our support group to get additional help on your problems upgrading to flexVDI 3.1.