Cisco 9K Scheduled Upgrade using Install Mode

[mvdsteen1982]

The latest 9k releases point out you should use install mode upgrade instead of bundled upgrade. 

The only thing i'm missing is a scheduled reload to upgrade in install mode. 

After you activate and commit you can't schedule a reload, instead it reloads immediately, or cancels the upgrade if you select "no" when it asks to reload after commit.

Maybe I'm missing something, please help me out, cheers ! 

[balaji.bandi]

if your content related to Catalyst 9000 series, yes this is not the feature do schedule reload.

when user upgrade it required reboot to take effective, i do not see any reason to reboot later and if you enounter some issue if you are not onsite.

So schdule the change time and upgrade and reboot is the easy way and safe approach my point of view.

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[mvdsteen1982]

I think scheduled reloads for upgrading is widely used, just to avoid working hours.

[Leo Laohoo]

That is odd. What command are you using to do the install?
When I upgraded mine I scheduled a reboot.

[mvdsteen1982]

e.g.: install add file flash:cat9k_iosxe.16.09.04.SPA.bin activate commit
What command are you using?

[jlkeys]

Did you have any luck finding an answer?  I've been searching as well and haven't run across anything in the documentation yet.

[Tom Vanhout]

I have been looking at this as well, as we are preparing to upgrades the switches this summer (scheduled bulk upgrades)
for me this is the first time working with install mode (i see is was already present on 3850's, be we don't have these in the network)

it's already confusing that you have different options
install add file <file> activate commit (prompt-level none)
in case you want to upgrade in one shot 

or you do 
install add file <file>
install activate  (with nothing added)
(switch reboots)
install commit

in case you want to load a patch (SMU) it's the same line of commands but different, as here you do
install activate <file>
install deactivate <file>

...

So if I just focus on the image upgrade and using
install add file <file> activate commit prompt-level none
then the switch will reboot in the process.
what I am looking for is the behaviour of the bundle mode.
there you can specify through the bootpath which version you want to upgrade to (choose the correct .bin file)
and you can specify with the reload command when you want this to happen.
I have seen a video where they have similar behaviour in install mode where they first do an extraction
(older command request platform package expand ...)
then they point in the bootpath to the packages.conf  for that version. (which is listed as <version>.conf file in the flash)
and then they schedule a reboot with the reload command.
Now, instead of the package expand command you now have the install add file command.
Which i think does the same but seems to behave somewhat different, because if i try this and set the bootpath to the packages.conf of the new version

then the switch enters a boot loop upon reload. (certain files he cannot find causing a fatal failure in the binos_script.service)
So this approach would have been the way to go, but doesn't seem to work anymore?

What else can we do.

we can schedule the

install add file <file> activate commit prompt-level none

with a kron policy

or we schedule it with a cron-timer in an event manager applet.

or we take into account that it takes a few minutes for the switch to actually reboot after giving the command, and we schedule it via a cron service on a remote server.
(as we want to reload in bulk, if the command is given remote, it is depending on the network to get to the switch, so we can't have switches rebooting while we give the command in bulk to upgrade)

I am sure it is possible to perform a scheduled upgrade, as likely you can do it with prime or dnacenter, so the mechanism must be there.

I am curious to know which method people have chosen here.

edit: kron policy also doesn't seem to work, it doesn't understand that prompt-level none made the command non-interactive.
000116: *May 19 18:40:00 CEST: Call parse_cmd 'install add file flash:cat9k_lite_iosxe.16.12.02.SPA.bin activate commit prompt-level none'
000117: *May 19 18:40:00 CEST: Kron CLI return 0
'
**CLI 'install add file flash:cat9k_lite_iosxe.16.12.02.SPA.bin activate commit prompt-level none':
% Interactive command cannot execute in non-interactive context'

[david_sieracki]

I also find this omission baffling.

The C3650 switches running 3.x have the "software install file XXX on-reboot" which does exactly what a lot users want: stage the update pending a reboot.

The commenters that say you should want to reboot immediately must not work at a large business with change management and 24 hour operations?

Scheduling downtime for the reboot is hard enough when you can specify the exact time. When you need to upgrade dozens of switches and your process takes a variable period of time and then spontaneously reboots, it is hard on the IT staff and the business.