Cisco 4500x from 3.5.1 to 3.8.8 upgrade path

[michelle040414]

Hi,

I will be having a firmware upgrade tonight of my 2x Cisco 4500x in VSS from 3.5.1 to 3.8.8. Any upgrade path that I need to consider first before jump to 3.8.8? 

Thank you.

Regards,

Mich

[Leo Laohoo]

Did you read the Release Notes?

[michelle040414]

I just read. :) ISSU not applicable. So must reboot the same time.

[Leo Laohoo]

Do you need to upgrade the ROMmon first?

[michelle040414]

Hi Leo,

Current version of ROMmon of the switches is 15.0(1r)SG11, and I read from release notes state

- https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst4500/release/note/ol-38xe-4500e.html#pgfId-1303882-
"If you are upgrading to Cisco IOS XE Release 3.8.xE and plan to use VSS, you must upgrade your ROMMON to version 15.0(1r)SG10. Otherwise, you must upgrade your ROMMON to at least Version 15.0(1r)SG2".


So I can proceed to upgrade to 3.8.8? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My switches is running on VSS.

Thanks

[michelle040414]

Hi Leo,
Below is the procedure I will follow to upgrade my switches tonight. Please let me know if there's any issue on the procedure.

1) New IOS upload in bootflash and slave bootflash:
"copy tftp://<TFTP IP address>/NEWIOS_filename.bin bootflash:";
"copy tftp://<TFTP IP address>/NEWIOS_filename.bin slavebootflash:";
2) Very with MD5 command
Show version - Register value should be (config-register 0x2102)
verify bootflash: New_IOS.bin
verify slavebootflash: New_IOS.bin
3) Set the boot path for current IOS and verify path is set
no boot system bootflash:OLD-IOS.bin
boot system bootflash: New_IOS.bin
write mem & check bootvar is updated
show bootvar
4) Reloading for IOS upgrade in both devices.
redundancy reload shelf
5) After both devices come up we will verify IOS in both of device.
show module (for verification)

[Leo Laohoo · Accepted solution]

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@michelle040414 wrote:
verify bootflash: New_IOS.bin
verify slavebootflash: New_IOS.bin

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The "correct" syntax is "verify /md bootflash:filename.bin <MD5 HASH>"

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@michelle040414 wrote:
redundancy reload shelf

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Just issue the "reload" command.

[michelle040414]

Hi Leo, thanks for your help. I will do it later hope no issues will happen. :)

[Leo Laohoo]

I upgraded 3 x 4500X to 3.8.8 a week ago. I even threw in a ROMmon upgrade (even though it wasn't necessary).
NOTE: The only "issue" was a "bug" with the ROMmon upgrade which meant that I had to physically pull the power cable.

[michelle040414]

I already upgraded to 3.8.6 and not to 3.8.8, I don't know why I can't do tftp. It's always giving me a timed out error when I tried to copy the file from the tftp server and due to limited time of maintenance window I can't troubleshoot any longer. Luckily the switches was already uploaded last time the 3.8.6 (my colleague tried twice attempt to upgrade from 3.5.1 to 3.8.6 but no success) so what I did is to power cycle at the same time the switch and it's upgraded with no issues to 3.8.6.

[Leo Laohoo]

Most likely firewall.
4500X has a USB port which one can use a USB thumb drive to copy to the appliance.