FWSM Software Upgrade (With Failover)

[gchui]

Dear all,

I have two Firewall Service Modules in two separate 6500 chassis, which run stateful failover. Does any know how to upgrade the two FWSM ios without service interruption?

Thanks

[jsivulka]

I guess IOS upgrade will be always disruptive. However, the downtime can be minimized. You could load the new software on both blades. Now, during a maintainence window, reload the primary. The standby will take over. About one minute later or so, reload the standby. This should see both the blades upgraded with minimal disruption.

[sreddy]

Hi,

I'm planning to upgrade FWSM blades in the same scenario...

My question is what happens when the Primary blade comes up with new image version number (version mismatch)? I assume this will create problem as 1.1.3 doesn't support different version numbers in failover scenario.

Should I remove the physical connections between two blades (failover VLAN) during the upgrade process?

Also is it possible to upgrade from 1.1.3 to 2.2.1 or 2.3.x directly?

Thanks.