Software Updates & OS Upgradev7.0.20
A licensed appliance updates its own software automatically. The one update it cannot apply on its own — the operating system underneath it — is handed to a guided, out-of-band assistant you drive yourself.
Netmon software is delivered as signed packages from the Netmon update service, and a licensed appliance updates itself — application, monitoring services, and the staged client artifacts (agent installers, integrations) move forward together, so the appliance and its satellites stay matched. The one exception is an upgrade of the underlying operating system, which is operator-driven and covered below.
Software updates
While your maintenance subscription is active (the Licensing card shows the coverage date), updates arrive and apply automatically — there is nothing to download and no button to press. A brief service restart accompanies an update; collected history, devices, settings, and alerting all carry through untouched.
- Keep maintenance current. An appliance out of coverage continues to run but stops receiving updates — the version simply freezes in place.
- Keep backups current (see Data Maintenance) — the habit that makes every kind of change boring.
- Air-gapped sites cannot reach the update service; support supplies offline update packages for isolated networks.
- There is no deferral or scheduling control in this release — updates apply as delivered. The installed version is shown on the sign-in page and on the System Upgrade card in System → System Settings, which is where you confirm an update has landed.
If behavior seems odd, check the installed version (on the sign-in page, or the System Upgrade card) against what support says is current before chasing anything else — a frozen version usually means lapsed maintenance, and it is the first thing support will ask.
Upgrading agents
A software update can stage a newer Windows agent. Enrolled agents learn of it at their next check-in and surface it in their tray application; roll it out host-by-host with local consent, or push the new installer through your software-distribution tooling at scale (see The Windows Agent).
Operating-system upgrades
The out-of-band assistant is documented screen by screen in the dedicated System Upgrade Guide — Debian 11 to 12. Read it before you start; the summary below is the orientation.
Between releases of the underlying operating system, Netmon provides a guided, out-of-band upgrader: an operator-driven assistant that walks the appliance through the OS-level upgrade with checkpoints between phases, reachable on its own port so it can supervise the upgrade even while the main interface restarts. When an OS upgrade applies to your appliance, the System Upgrade card appears in System → System Settings with the assistant’s controls, and a one-time access token is shown there for the out-of-band interface.
OS upgrades are infrequent, deliberate events:
- Take and download a configuration backup.
- Schedule a maintenance window — the appliance reboots at least twice, and monitoring is down throughout.
- Follow the assistant’s phases; it pauses at the points of no return and reports progress as it goes.
Do not power-cycle the appliance mid-upgrade. The assistant is built to pause, report, and resume; pulling power between its checkpoints is the one intervention it cannot protect you from. When in doubt, leave it alone and contact support with the assistant’s status visible.