Cisco 6509 goes in rommon on reboot

Hamza Burney · ‎07-25-2011

Hi everyone,

I am facing a problem with a cisco 6509 that goes into rommon every time i restart. If i give the command

rommon 1> boot

it will pick up the IOS on the sup-bootdisk: or bootdisk: and boots up but i dont understand why on reboot it wont pick up this IOS and boot itself and why do i have to write boot command everytime on rommon.

I have also explicitly given the command "boot system bootdisk:IOSNAME.bin" in the startup config file but still no luck.

Please advice for what i should do....

manju.cisco · ‎07-25-2011

Hi Hamza,

You should have bootvar definied in your configs. I guess you have not defined proper bootvar in your current configuration.

write this to ur configs

boot system sup-bootdisk:IOSNAME.bin !!.//you have given bootdisk:, in 6509 its sup-bootdisk

copy run start

Latchum Naidu · ‎07-25-2011

Hi,

You must clear the old boot system and set the new bootvar to which you upgraded recently.
See the below procedure.

--> Set bootvar appropriately [new file first (i.e., the one you are upgrading to) then old version], for example:

"set boot system flash bootflash:cat6000-sup.6-3-5.bin prepend" (adds to the beginning of what's already there)

" clear boot system flash bootflash:cat6000-sup2.6-1-1d.bin" (removes an entry from the boot variable should you need to do this)

Please rate the helpfull posts.
Regards,
Naidu.

Hamza Burney · ‎07-26-2011

I have tried this did a re-write of the startup config...but still it went into the rommon.

Jon Marshall · ‎07-26-2011

Exactly what did you put in your running config ? - it should be -

boot system flash sup-bootdisk:

Jon

Latchum Naidu · ‎07-26-2011

Hi,

Please post your running-config by removing all sensitive info.

Please rate the helpfull posts.
Regards,
Naidu.

manju.cisco · ‎07-26-2011

Also pls give us output of

show bootvar

show version

manju.cisco · ‎07-27-2011

Hi Hamza,

were u able to fix the issue ??

If not, pls provide the requested outputs to dive further

Hamza Burney · ‎07-27-2011

I'll feed in the answers you guys asked by tomorrow....for sure. Thanks for the help.

Hamza Burney · ‎07-27-2011

Here is some info that i think will be useful if there is anything else you guys need let me know..

!
! Last configuration change at 10:29:52 UTC Fri Jul 22 2011
!
upgrade fpd auto
version 12.2
service timestamps debug uptime
service timestamps log uptime
service password-encryption
service counters max age 5
!
hostname SWITCH1
!
boot system flash sup-bootdisk:
boot system bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin
enable secret 5 $xxxxxxxxx
!
no aaa new-model
ip subnet-zero
!
!

SWITCH1#dir /all
Directory of sup-bootdisk:/

1 -rw- 47545796 Aug 3 2007 04:34:02 +00:00 s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin
2 -rw- 47675844 Jul 25 2011 09:59:02 +00:00 s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF17b.bin

255938560 bytes total (160714752 bytes free)
SWITCH1#

SWITCH1#dir ?
/all             List all files
/recursive       List files recursively
all-filesystems List files on all filesyste
bootflash:       Directory or file name
cns:             Directory or file name
const_nvram:     Directory or file name
disk0:           Directory or file name
flexwan-fpd:     Directory or file name
null:            Directory or file name
nvram:           Directory or file name
sup-bootdisk:    Directory or file name
sup-microcode:   Directory or file name
system:          Directory or file name
tar:             Directory or file name
tmpsys:          Directory or file name

SWITCH1#show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) s3223_rp Software (s3223_rp-IPBASE_WAN-M), Version 12.2(18)SXF10, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2007 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Fri 13-Jul-07 04:29 by kellythw
Image text-base: 0x40101040, data-base: 0x42A28EE0

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 12.2(17r)SX3, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
BOOTLDR: s3223_rp Software (s3223_rp-IPBASE_WAN-M), Version 12.2(18)SXF10, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

SWITCH1 uptime is 2 days, 18 hours, 26 minutes
Time since SWITCH1 switched to active is 2 days, 18 hours, 25 minutes
System returned to ROM by s/w reset (SP by power-on)
System restarted at 11:20:13 UTC Mon Jul 25 2011
System image file is "sup-bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin"

cisco WS-C6509-E (R7000) processor (revision 1.4) with 458752K/65536K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID SMG1128N2LR
R7000 CPU at 300Mhz, Implementation 0x27, Rev 3.3, 256KB L2, 1024KB L3 Cache
Last reset from power-on
SuperLAT software (copyright 1990 by Meridian Technology Corp).
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
Bridging software.
TN3270 Emulation software.
11 Virtual Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interfaces
25 Gigabit Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interfaces
1915K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.

65536K bytes of Flash internal SIMM (Sector size 512K).
Configuration register is 0x2102

SWITCH1#

Sonugnair_2 · ‎07-27-2011

The valid boot system command should be as:

sw(conf t)#boot system flash sup-bootflash:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin

And remove the other boot system commands.

Hamza Burney · ‎07-28-2011

I have actually tried this too and wrote the startup file but still the switch went in rommon.

another thing to note that if i am in rommon...rommon wont recognize the sup-bootflash it will only accept

rommon 1> boot bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin

and if i igive it

rommon 1> boot sup-bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin

it will give me an error saying su-bootdisk: file or folder does not exist.

Sonugnair_2 · ‎07-28-2011

Could you please post output from:-

remote command switch show ver | inc register

and

remote command switch show bootvar

manju.cisco · ‎07-28-2011

Hi Hamza,

You didnt give me output of "show bootvar"

ok do this,

if you have the switch up and running now then issue these commands in config terminal(if not, do boot from rommon as you are currently doing)

!

no boot system flash sup-bootdisk:

no boot system bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin

boot system sup-bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin

!

write memory

!

You see in the show version that the ios the switch fetching is "sup-bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin". However rommon doesnt recognize sup, but just as bootdisk....

After you config the above given 3 configuration statements, issue command "show run | in boot system"

and you should see ouput only as "boot system sup-bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin"

issue command "show bootvar" and confirm the boot variable is pointed correctly, you should see something like below

BOOT variable = sup-bootdisk:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin,12;

then do reload, it has to boot properly now

Hamza Burney · ‎07-28-2011

Thanks for the reply...sorry for the bootvar here it is now...

SWITCH1#show bootvar
BOOT variable = bootflash:s3223-ipbase_wan-mz.122-18.SXF10.bin,1;
CONFIG_FILE variable does not exist
BOOTLDR variable does not exist
Configuration register is 0x2102

Standby is not present.
SWITCH1#

Let me know if you want to proceed with what you said manju.cisco