Upgrade Wlc's firmware with high-availability AP-SSO enabled

[theophile]

Hello,

We want to upgrade two controllers (5508) in cluster with HA AP-SSO enabled. Could you please give me some recommandations before doing the upgrade? I do not know if all of the APs on the active Wlc will be automatically transfered to the standby one during the upgrade. As both wlcs are located on a critical site, I want to minimize the downtime and want to avoid any problem!

Thanks a lot for your advices

Theo

[Leo Laohoo · Accepted solution]

If your WLC are in HA AP SSO mode, then do this: 

1.   Push the firmware upgrade to the active controller.  The active controller will push the firmware to the hot standby controller; 

2.  DO NOT REBOOT; 

3.  Do an AP pre-download; 

4.  Once the pre-download is complete, reload the pairs.

[theophile]

Thanks Leo, I'll give it a try and let know the result to the community

Cheers

[theophile]

It worked perfectly. I received as well an email from Saurav Lodh (sac-support@cisco.com) who gave me the detailed procedure. Here is a copy of this procedure:

Upgrade Procedure in HA Setup

Complete these steps:

1. After the WLCs are configured in the HA setup, the Standby WLC cannot be upgraded directly from the TFTP/FTP server.

2. Initiate upgrade on the Active WLC in the HA setup via CLI/GUI, and wait for the upgrade to finish.

3. Once the Active WLC executes all the upgrade scripts, it will transfer the entire image to the Standby WLC via the Redundant Port.

4. When the Standby WLC receives the image from the Active WLC, it will start executing the upgrade scripts. The transfer of the image to standby and the execution of the upgrade scripts on the Standby WLC can be seen on the Active WLC Console/Telnet/SSH/Http connection.

5. After a successful message of Standby Upgrade is observed on the Active WLC, it is important to issue the show boot command on the Active WLC in order to make sure the new image is set as the primary image.

6. Once verified, initiate primary image pre-download on the Active WLC in order to transfer the new image to all the APs in the network.

7. After pre-image is completed on all the APs, issue the show ap image all command in order to verify that the primary image on the WLC is set as the backup image on APs.

8. Initiate swap option to interchange the backup image as primary on the APs. With this implementation, the WLC's and AP's primary image is set to the new image.

9. Issue the schedule-reset command as per planned outage with the no swap option in order to reset the APs and WLCs so that they can boot with the new image.

10. The Standby WLC will reset just one minute before the scheduled reset time to boot and come up first to take over the network with the new image.

11. All the APs will reboot and join the new Active WLC, and the previous Active WLC will transition to the standby role.

12. Issue the show boot, show sysinfo, show ap image all, and show redundancy summary commands in order to verify that both the WLCs and APs have booted with the new image.

Important Guidelines before Initiating a WLC Upgrade in HA Setup

• Service Upgrade is not supported in this release, so network downtime should be planned before you upgrade the WLCs in the HA setup.
• The peer should be in the Hot Standby state before you start the upgrade in the HA setup.
• It is recommended to reboot both the WLCs almost together after upgrade so that there is no software version mismatch.
• Schedule Reset applies to both the WLCs in the HA setup. The peer WLC reboots one minute before the scheduled timer expiry on the Active WLC.
• The Standby WLC can be rebooted from the Active WLC using the reset peer-system command if a scheduled reset is not planned.
• Debug transfer can be enabled on the Active WLC as well as the Standby WLC.
• If Active WLC unexpectedly reboot between software download and reboot both WLCs, you need to reboot both WLCs in order to complete software upgrade.

Many thanks to the community for all the tips!

Theo

[panayiotiscy]

Hello Netpros,

Thats a very useful guide!

Does it also apply to the FUS upgrade?

Thanks

[Leo Laohoo]

Depends on the FUS code and whether or not your WLC are in HA SSO.

[panayiotiscy]

Hello Leo,

We are upgrading our Wism-2 HA controllers to this FUS: 1.9.0.0

does the procedure remain the same?!

thanks

[Scott Fella]

The process is the same. I would suggest you initiate the upgrade from the console so you can see that the standby has also initiated the upgrade and has completed. Also be in front of the console because my WLC's have gone into maintenance mode after rebooting and I had to initiate a reload again and both pairs came back up. 

Please rate helpful post and Cisco Support Community will donate to Kiva

Scotty

[panayiotiscy]

Hello scot and thanka for confirming that.one last thing.shall i first upgrade the aoftware code and then the fus?thanks

[Leo Laohoo]

It doesn't matter which one you want to do first.  It won't make any difference.  The main important thing is you upgrade both.  

For the FUS upgrade, make time for about 25 minutes (I timed it).  

[Scott Fella]

Give yourself more time and it depends if you let it auto answer or if you enter 'y' to perform each upgrade. It's always safe to safe 30-60 minutes in case your WLC's goes into maintenance mode:)

[panayiotiscy]

Ok guys great! I am always eager to receiving your feedback. thanks

[xch_dsp22]

Do we know why would the WLC go into maintenance mode and how can it be avoided ?

How long would the whole upgrade usually take aprox.? 

Is there any dependecy between FUS version and main firmware version ?

Regards, 

DSP

[Leo Laohoo]

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@xch_dsp22 wrote:

Do we know why would the WLC go into maintenance mode and how can it be avoided ?

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The most common reason is the two controllers are running different firmware versions.  

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 How long would the whole upgrade usually take aprox.? 

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FUS upgrade takes about 25 minutes.  Firmware upgrade will depend on the IOS.  Normally, I'd have a 45 minute change window and this is sufficient for the FUS upgrade and firmware upgrade 

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 Is there any dependecy between FUS version and main firmware version ?

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Update the FUS code as early as you can (and even if it's not mandatory).   You'd rather have a little bit of pain now than suffer the consequences later.

[MUQ_1899_]

How should I exactly reboot the controllers?

"Reset system both" or "reboot system" on each controller individually?

Are there any logs on the Web GUI during the transfer of the image to the secondary and executing the scrips on it?