Cisco 5520 ASA need to upgrade flash from 64M to 256M

[KevenBaker]

                   I need to upgrade the ASA 5520 from OS 8.2(5)26 to 8.2(5)33.  the ASA only has 64M of flash.  I have a 256M flash card.  What are the steps to upgrade the flash?  I am not sure how  it will boot up because the new flash will be blank?

[Jouni Forss]

Hi,

Do you have several unused images on the Flash or why are you running out of Flash memory to need additional memory? Or is the software/asdm/anyconnect images taking enough space to prevent uploading another image?

To my understanding every basic ASA model between 5510 and 5550 have an internal flash by default.

They also should have an additional external slot for additional Flash memory which doesnt contain a Flash memory card when you get an ASA.

You should therefore be able to install the Flash memory there and upload the image there and boot the new software from there without removing any old softwares.

I have never used the addiotional Flash memory slot but I'd imagine you could do the following:

• Insert the new Flash memory to the free slot
  • Do the needed steps (if any?) to prepare the Flash memory for use
• Load the new software to the new flash memory

  • I'd imagine instead of disk0:/ this new one would be disk1:/

  • You can issue "dir ?" to see what is available
• When you are ready to upgrade set the new image from the new Flash memory slot
  • boot system disk1:/asa-xxxx.bin
  • wr mem
  • reload

I'm not 100% sure on the procedure but I'm sure there is some information related to using the external memory slot

- Jouni

[Marvin Rhoads]

Focus on Jouni's first questions. The 64 MB flash that's built-in should be plenty. Check for old images and such on your current flash (disk0:).

A simple "dir" command will show you what's taking up your space. Anything other than the current ASA system software and ASDM (and possibly Anyconnect and plug-in images if you're using them) is not necessary to keep around. ASA 8.2 is about 15 MB. ASDM is 17-18 MB depending on the version you're using.