[Feature] Reduce download size of Linux-node AKSEE offline upgrade in Windows rollup or document how it can be done

[scholz]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

• Yes, the problem/challenge is as follows: all the AKSEE installations for customers will be done in an offline fashion (ie. using a proprietary established update mechanism), which will download the required files to the machine of the customer and then execute the update. But for AKSEE this requires a download of 10GB to each customer machine today.

• We have verified that the documented update process (OfflineUpdate Docs from AKSEE and Windows Update Catalogue for AKSEE) works and it successfully keeps all the pods running in the VM etc - which is great and exactly what we want!

• However, for this to work today, we need to download 10GB of files to the customer system. In contrast, the actual AKSEE MSI Linux-node only is only ~1GB in size (Download link k3s MSI), since it does not include the Windows-node part. However, using only the MSI doesn't work as it complains that the previous install needs to be removed first.

Describe the solution you'd like
We would like either

• a reduced size update possiblity e.g. another offering in windows update catalogue only targeted at the Linux-node
  Or
• documentation how to extract only that part from the 10GB download (we could then download the 10GB elsewhere and strip off the unneeded parts)
  Or
• maybe it is possible to bake in the functionality of update into the "default" MSI installer

Describe alternatives you've considered

• We could spend a lot of time in reversing the current update process (windows rollup) and try to figure out which parts are only required for Linux update, but we dont think this make sense as it will likely break quickly - we also see the update functionality as one of the essential selling points
• We could also try to develop our own update ie. extracting the cluster state and objects, uninstalling, reinstalling and trying to re-instantiate all the objects after redeployment but that would cost a lot of time + we see the update as a strong and essential feature of the AKSEE offering

[parameshbabu]

Windows support is an additional optional feature update and you dont need to download/install that if you are not using windows. Can you explain where you are seeing the 10GB size? Thanks.

[scholz]

Hi, thank you for your reply:

• the 10GB come from the windows update catalogue, here: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=aks+edge+essentials
  • there you need to download the whole 10GB (all the exe files) to run the update there is no possibilty to decide only Linux node
  • if you do this then you can update the previously installed AKSEE edge correctly
• the linux msi which is only 1GB will not install if a previous version of AKSEE has already been installed (so no update function)

To make it clearer here is a screenshot from windows update catalogue (sorry for the German in the image but it didnt let me switch to English quickly):