2025.1 Release Notes

Build Number: 2025.1.0.27 Last updated: 17/01/2025

Warning

This upgrade contains a full operating system migration and system setting changes. It is important to review the release notes thoroughly and follow the recommendations below:

• Review system requirements carefully and update your system to meet the requirements prior to attempting the upgrade

• Review the Known Issues section

• This upgrade will take longer than normal, and we recommend reviewing the below Upgrade articles to create the best upgrade plan that suits your needs:

  • How to upgrade N-central

  • Upgrade from an older version of N-central (2022.x and below)

  • How to perform a parallel upgrade to avoid downtime

• While we recommend having a recovery plan for all upgrade attempts due to the size and nature of this upgrade there is increased risk of the upgrade to go wrong. We recommend reviewing the below articles to ensure you have a backup and have a recovery plan prepared:

  • N-central backup best practices

  • How to perform and N-central System Backup

  • How to restore from an N-central System Backup

  • System Boot Modifications

• Review the Supported Upgrade paths carefully to pick the correct upgrade package

What's New in 2025.1

AlmaLinux Migration

• Replaced underlying operating system on N-central from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 9.4

• Updated System Requirements page for N-central with new system requirements

• Dropped support for legacy BIOS firmware for new installations. All new installations must be on 64 bit UEFI enabled firmware. When running system backup and restore you must restore to 64 bit UEFI enabled firmware.

• Dropped support for SNMP based hardware monitoring (RAID, Memory, etc) of the N-central server on bare metal HPE ProLiant G9 and older servers

• Dropped support for USB-connected, APCC or UPS, devices connected to bare metal N-central servers

Supported Upgrade Paths

• Pre-Almalinux Upgrade : N-central-OS-Upgrade-2025.1.0.X.nsp

  • 2024.1.0.0 - Requires access to the NAC (Port 10000)

  • 2024.2.0.0 - Requires access to the NAC (Port 10000)

  • 2024.3.0.0 - Requires access to the NAC (Port 10000)

  • 2024.4.0.0 - Requires access to the NAC (Port 10000)

  • 2024.6.0.0

• Post-AlmaLinux Upgrade : N-central-Upgrade-2025.1.0.X.nsp

  • 2025.1.0.X

N-central on AlmaLinux

The current versions of N-central runs on a CentOS 7 operating system and while this has served N-central well this Operating system went end of life in June 2024. After Red Hat discontinued CentOS in favor of CentOS stream we determined this was no longer an optimal solution for N-central. We considered multiple options and ultimately landed on AlmaLinux. In addition to migrating to a fully supported operating system, this updated version of AlmaLinux will enable us to install more modern libraries and help us improve the security of the overall product.

Included updates in N-able N-central

N-central 2025.1

• Updated the Underlying Operating System from CentOS7 to AlmaLinux 9.4

• Updated a number of underlying libraries to newer versions for compatibility with AlmaLinux 9.4

Category	Summary	Issue key
Core	Addressed Take Control automatic installation failure and device showing as 'Take Control not configured' despite successful manual install	NCCF-438692
Core	Corrected Jetty performing unexpected garbage collection and restart, causing N-central to be inaccessible on specific NCOD.	NCCF-428597
Core	Rectified filters on agent check-in not loading in certain cases.	NCCF-415461
Core	Fixed GenericDAO.updateCache() from unnecessarily acquiring write locks on the entire cache, creating contention even when operations only require changes at the element level, and redundant locking occurs during deletion attempts when no deletion is needed	NCCF-415121
Core	Amended issue where Analytics Dashboard report did not display all devices or device data	NCCF-384631
Core	Eliminated N-central cache from causing page load delays	NCCF-380228
Core	Mitigated high volume of API calls from impacting server performance	NCCF-371550
Core	Resolved a System Error when executing Update Asset Discovery	NCCF-294612

Known Issues

Upgrading from 24.6 and below

When upgrading from a version below 2024.6.0.19 you will need to upload the NSP upgrade file through port 10000 (NAC) we console.

The following items are for the current version of the N-able N-central software. They include material issues that significantly impact performance whose cause has been replicated by N-able and where a fix has not yet been released. The list is not exclusive and does not contain items that are under investigation. Any known limitations set forth herein may not impact every customer environment. The N-able N-central software is being provided as it operates today. Any potential modifications, including a specific bug fix or any potential delivery of the same, are not considered part of the current N-able N-central software and are not guaranteed.

Agents & Probes

Description	Bug
When adding a new scheduled task and selecting the option "Update Asset Info When Finished", the selected value is not saved after clicking the Save button.	NCCF-453455