Keeping up with MuleSoft Runtime Patches
Several high-profile data breaches have occurred due to vulnerabilities that could have been mitigated or prevented by simply updating or patching the affected software or systems.
This article provides an overview of how MuleSoft provides patches to its runtimes, how these patches could be applied to various MuleSoft & Customer hosted runtimes as well as a strategy to validate and test these patches.
MuleSoft provides Runtime updates that typically include bug fixes, security patches, and new features. Keeping up with these updates protects your business and customers from various threat factors and attacks that might compromise critical data.
MuleSoft follows semantic versioning for releases. Major releases are significant updates that introduce new features and functionality, while Patch releases are smaller updates that address bugs and security vulnerabilities.
Major and Minor version releases are bundled with new features and functionality. Tech teams often need time to leverage the newer runtimes by making the updates as part of a release or a delivery schedule. Patch releases are cumulative releases that are published frequently and are well-tested for backward compatibility. As newer threats and issues are identified globally every month, it is a good practice to establish a recurring patching schedule to minimize risks and reduce interruptions for businesses.
Why are patches to MuleSoft Runtimes critical?
MuleSoft runtime updates are critical for businesses using the platform. These updates provide several benefits, including:
- Improved Security: MuleSoft regularly releases security patches to address known vulnerabilities in the platform. These updates help protect businesses’ sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access to their systems.
- Bug Fixes: Runtime updates also include bug fixes, which improve the stability and reliability of the platform. These fixes can help prevent system crashes and improve the overall performance of integration workflows.
- New Features: Major releases of the Mule runtime often introduce new features and functionality that can help businesses streamline their operations and improve efficiency. These updates can include new connectors, integration patterns, and tools for monitoring and managing integrations.
- Compatibility: Runtime updates ensure that MuleSoft remains compatible with the latest operating systems, databases, and other software components. This compatibility ensures that businesses can continue to integrate new systems and applications as they become available.
How do you install MuleSoft Runtime Patches?
Installing patches varies by the deployment strategy chosen by organizations.
CloudHub: CloudHub 1.0 and 2.0 Runtimes are hosted and managed by MuleSoft. Hence updates are automatically applied at least once a month to ensure your applications are running with all critical security patches and backward-compatible bug fixes.
Applications running in sandbox environments are updated during weekdays while applications in production are updated during weekends. If your application required manual updates due to critical processes or cannot support rolling updates then you can plan for applying runtime updates before the automatic updates are triggered. Refer to CloudHub 1.0 and CloudHub 2.0 update schedules.
Standalone Runtimes (Customer Hosted): Businesses can either use the Mule Upgrade tool to update their runtime or manually download and install the latest runtime version. The Mule upgrade tool also updates the mule agent as well as handles upgrades to clustered runtimes by upgrading one node at a time to minimize downtime.
The Mule Upgrade tool is a command line utility for upgrading Mule Runtimes and Mule Agent. The tool can be packaged along with other scripts to automate the process of upgrading and patching the runtimes.
Updates to operating systems, firewalls, and network components are the customer’s responsibility.
Runtime Fabric (Self Managed: AKS, EKS, GKE, or RedHat OpenShift): Runtime Fabric(RTF) consists of multiple components running on a Kubernetes cluster managed on-premise or in the cloud. Updates are required for all Core Runtime Fabric components as well as Mule Runtimes used by applications.
Runtime Fabric now supports hosting all images in the enterprise or usingMuleSoft hosted private ECR. For customers hosting images in the local registry, images with Mule Runtime updates and patches have to be pulled from MuleSoft’s private ECR using secure credentials provided via Anypoint Platform.
Similar to CloudHub, MuleSoft enforces customers on Runtime Fabric to keep up with Mule Runtime updates. As MuleSoft releases monthly patches, the control plane enforces new deployments or updates to existing ones using new MuleSoft Runtime Images only.
In addition to Mule Runtime updates, RTF consists of several core services running in an isolated namespace (rtf) that require updates. RTF managed on AKS, EKS, and GKE can be upgraded via rtfctl a command line utility, or via helm. OpenShift updates can be run automatically or manually via the OpenShift console.
All Kubernetes and Host system updates are the customer’s responsibility per the Shared Responsibility model. It is a good practice to refer RTF version compatibility before upgrading your Kubernetes cluster.
How to validate MuleSoft updates and patches?
Keeping up with updates is a good practice but often requires a strategy or a plan in place to support the rollout of updates while ensuring that it doesn’t application behavior.
MUnits can be configured to run on a specified runtime release or a patch version to help validate and test Mule applications before applying specific releases to MuleSoft runtimes.
MUnits are a great way to automate the testing of Mule applications. Having a proper set of test cases and good coverage would often help accelerate testing. MUnits can be configured to run on a specific MuleSoft patch version. MUnit patching and testing can be run independently from Mule Runtime patching allowing us to validate patches ahead of planned upgrade schedules.
Conclusion
MuleSoft Runtime updates and patches are critical for ensuring the reliability, security, and performance of the platform. By staying up to date with the latest runtime version, businesses can take advantage of new features and functionality while protecting their data from security vulnerabilities. Refer to MuleSoft Runtime patches here for more information.
