Timed reload or software installation on IOS-XR

[geisler0815]

Hello everyone,

In former times updating a router or switch was quite simple. Pushing the new image to the device, change the boot variable and then let it reboot with „reload at …“ when convenient. Of course this could cause trouble if you weren‘t very cautious, but it was a very simple procedure. Now we have new devices with fancy installation procedures, like IOS-XE in install mode or NX-OS or IOS-XR. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I once bricked a switch with installing a wrong software image …

But now a new problem came up: most of these installation procedures follows an immediate reload. In IOS-XE I could still deny a reload and still do a “reload at …” afterwards. But on our new routers running IOS-XR I don’t have this option. So I have a bunch of NCS540 and NCS5500 here with need a software update and it would cause much trouble when they are rebooted while business hours.

So long story short: how can I reload a router running IOS-XR (versions from 7.4.1 to 7.9.2) on a specific time and date? Or is there a hidden switch embedded in the “install” which we didn’t find yet?

Yours sincerely

[DanielP211]

Hello! 

I dug deep into this a while ago (I'm doing upgrades quite frequently for my clients) and found out that cat C9300/9500 to some version still supported the command:
request platform software package install switch all flash:<FILENAME> on-reboot new auto-copy

But C9200/C9200L and 9500 high performance do not. So the only way is to do the command:
install add file bootflash:<FILENAME> activate commit

And chose N on the if you want to reload it. Later you can just schedule the reload at a given time, and the upgrade will finish so that the switch boots with the correct version. 

BR

[geisler0815]

Hi Daniel,

thanks for your fast answer. We also have a bunch of Catalyst 9500/9300/9200 in service. But I these are not my problem. They are running IOS-XE and so I know that I can just reload them myself after a successful installation. At the moment I only have an issue with routers running IOS-XR, because there seems to be neither "reload at .." nor a "relaod in .." command.

Yours sincerely

[DanielP211]

Hello!

Unlike some other Cisco operating systems, such as IOS and IOS-XE, IOS-XR does not have a native mechanism to schedule reloads using the "in" or "at" options. So your best option is to use a script like EEM or do a cronjob to do the scheduler reload.

BR