I am going to be upgrading Cisco IOS images from some old switches, routers and firewalls for a work project. I will be connecting to these devices via laptop w/Windows 7. I am trying to figure out how to upload the new IOS files to the Cisco devices (switches/routers, etc.) flash drive, from the laptop, so I can then reboot the new IOS from flash.
All of the documentation online refers to uploading from a TFTP server. I did not find any reference to using a laptop to do this. Can anyone pls advise, explain or steer me in the right direction on how to upload IOS's from a CPU to a Cisco flash device via console cable?
I am not sure that I completely understand your question. So let me try to answer it in this way and if this is not sufficient then perhaps you can clarify the question.
You can connect to the router or switch or firewall to establish a management session on the device. There is an option for transferring the IOS image using the console cable by doing an xmodem transfer which reads from the hard drive of your laptop and writes to flash of the device.
The xmodem transfer is quite slow due to the limited capacity of the console cable to transfer data. You might want to consider one of the options to use the console for management access and then to establish an Ethernet connection from the device to your laptop, install a tftp server on your laptop, and transfer the image file using the Ethernet connection which will be much more efficient than using xmodem on the console connection.
I am not sure that I completely understand your question. So let me try to answer it in this way and if this is not sufficient then perhaps you can clarify the question.
You can connect to the router or switch or firewall to establish a management session on the device. There is an option for transferring the IOS image using the console cable by doing an xmodem transfer which reads from the hard drive of your laptop and writes to flash of the device.
The xmodem transfer is quite slow due to the limited capacity of the console cable to transfer data. You might want to consider one of the options to use the console for management access and then to establish an Ethernet connection from the device to your laptop, install a tftp server on your laptop, and transfer the image file using the Ethernet connection which will be much more efficient than using xmodem on the console connection.
Thanks for replying. I will try both methods: xmodem and TFTP on my laptop. I have zero exp in this, so I wanted to get an idea of what I was getting into.
Xmodem sounds easier, but slower, TFTP sounds like more config, but the best long-term method. I will learn both methods. Below is a video that I found on youtube if anyone is interested in learning how to use xmodem or using your cpu as a TFTP server to transfer files. Thanks for your guidance again Rick!
I am glad that my response was helpful. Thank you for using the rating system to mark this question as answered. This will help other readers in the forum to identify discussions which have helpful information.
It is good to know how to use both xmodem and tftp. The performance advantage with tftp usually makes it preferable but there are some circumstances where you may need xmodem so knowing both is a good thing.
HTH
Rick
HTH
Rick
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