How long does a deployment remain alive?

General Discussions
1

I have a question about how deployments work.

Suppose there is a Mender server with five clients connected to it. If an artifact is uploaded and a deployment created, targeting “all devices”, presumably all five devices get that software update.

Same situation, except, that at the time the deployment is created and pushed, one of the devices is offline and not currently checking in with the server.

My first question is, how long can that device remain offline, and yet still receive the update once it comes back online? Is there a limit to this time, after which even if it did come back on line it wouldn’t get the update?

My second question is sort of the inverse. Suppose when the deployment in the example above is pushed, the device we said is offline is still offline. However, we also add a sixth device in the field. Will that device attempt to get the deployment? My guess is “no”, because it wasn’t part of the targeted list of devices when the deployment was created. That’s fine, I just need to confirm that this is the behavior.

Thanks!

2

Hi @jmeirow if a device is listed in a group, and a deployment is created against that group then the device will receive the update. If the device is not online then when it next comes online the deployment will be delivered. I’m unaware of any timeouts in deployments.

Note that if you have multiple deployments targeting a device, they will be applied in order when the device returns online. If you decide you just want to skip one, you need to manually abort the active deployment.

Adding a device to a group after a deployment is created will not modify the deployment so newly added devices will need a subsequent deployment created. Mender Enterprise does have a dynamic grouping feature where this kind of workflow can be automated.

Drew

3

Thanks @drewmoseley . This is very clear and exactly what we needed to know.