Upgrading Mobility Express IOS

[morabusa]

Hi, I am going to upgrade a Mobility Express to version 8.5.161.0 in some few days and as far I have read, this is the procedure:

1- Verify there is a TFTP server which can be access from Mobility Express management subnet.

2- Upload the new IOS to the TFTP server for Mobility Express and all connected APs.

3- Go to Management -> Software Update, set all necessary information about TFTP server an then click on UPDATE.

4- The Mobility Express will reload automatically if I set "Auto-Restart".

5- Once the ME device is upgraded, connected APs will upgrade their IOS too and restart and every shoudl work fine.

The thing is, I am upgrading from 8.5.105.0 IOS which I cannot download from Cisco site anymore because it has been retired, so I have the following questions to know what could I do if something goes wrong:

1- Can I upload the current 8.5.105.0 IOS from the APs to TFTP server before making the upgrade, in order to install it again if something goes wrong with new IOS? If it is possible, please help me to know where to find the current installed IOS file in the APs and how to upload it to TFTP server.

2- In case that the connected APs do not upgrade automatically after the ME upgrade, is there a way to force the APs to upgrade the IOS through CLI? I have read something about running the commando debug capwap console cli and then archive download-sw tftp://XXXXXX but it does not work in my current APs.

Thank you very much for the help.

[Scott Fella]

There are always a chance that things go wrong. You should have at least a few ME ap's in a lab where you can test. You should always have a saved copy of your images, but if you don't, well that's a whole different story. Why not open a TAC case for your upgrade, have them look at what your setup is, provide some recommendations and then have them available during the upgrade. You might also take one or two ap's offline just in case so that you can bring those aps up and shut down all the others ap's and then once your original ap's are back up, you can power up your other ap's and they should get the original image. So you do have options.