Assistance required for Catalyst 2960 IOS upgrade

[katerina.dardoufa]

Hello community,

I need to upgrade a Catalyst IOS, but I got a bit confused. The catalyst is currently running "c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5.bin", but I want to upgrade to "c2960-lanbasek9-mz.122-35.SE5.bin", in order to enable ssh.

#sh ver

(irrelevant output is omitted)

System image file is "flash:c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5/c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5.bin"

Model number                    : WS-C2960-48TC-L

#dir flash:

Directory of flash:/

    2  -rwx         736   Apr 4 2012 12:01:23 +03:00  vlan.dat

    3  -rwx           5  Apr 10 2012 09:50:26 +03:00  private-config.text

    5  -rwx        7508  Apr 10 2012 09:50:26 +03:00  config.text

    6  drwx         192   Mar 1 1993 02:07:21 +02:00  c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5

So in flash there is a directory which contains:

#dir flash:c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5

Directory of flash:/c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5/

    7  drwx        4480   Mar 1 1993 02:05:52 +02:00  html

  623  -rwx     5222733   Mar 1 1993 02:07:21 +02:00  c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5.bin

  624  -rwx         476   Mar 1 1993 02:07:21 +02:00  info

32514048 bytes total (24162304 bytes free)

What are the appropriate steps in order to upgrade to "c2960-lanbasek9-mz.122-35.SE5.bin". I have downloaded the tar file (c2960-lanbasek9-tar.122-35.SE5.tar)

1) Do I have to delete the old directory  (drwx         192   Mar 1 1993 02:07:21 +02:00  c2960-lanbase-mz.122-35.SE5)?

2) Are these the correct steps to download and extract the IOS?

 archive download-sw tftp://ip_address/2960-lanbasek9-tar.122-35.SE5.tar 

  verify flash:c2960-lanbasek9-mz.122-35.SE5.bin

  wr

  reload

3) Where will the tar files be extracted? Will an new directory be made or do I have to make one manually?

Thank you in advance,

Katerina

[Leo Laohoo · Accepted solution]

The "archive" command is an automated command which instructs the IOS to "unzip" the TAR file into a subdirectory.

If you are using the filename "2960-lanbasek9-tar.122-35.SE5.tar" then the IOS BIN file will be unzipped to the subdirectory called "2960-lanbasek9-tar.122-35.SE5".

You can then verify using the command "verify /md flash:2960-lanbasek9-tar.122-35.SE5/c2960-lanbasek9-mz.122-35.SE5.bin"

Your archive command does not contain the switch "/overwrite" which means that you will have TWO IOS files in your switch. 

[katerina.dardoufa]

Thank you for your response!

I also found this interesting pdf

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst2960/software/release/12.2_40_se/configuration/guide/2960SCG.pdf

which provided a very good explanation!

I managed to upgrade without any trouble

[Leo Laohoo]

Thanks for the ratings Katerina.