Understanding Firmware Versions
- Major version: A significant release introducing new features or substantial changes (e.g., 9.0.0).
- Minor version: Incremental improvements or small feature additions within a major version (e.g., 9.1.0).
- Patch version: Bug fixes or security patches applied to a minor version (e.g., 9.1.1).
Planning for Firmware Upgrade
- Know the current firmware version on the switch:
firmwareShow - Check hardware and software compatibility:
- Review the Fabric OS (FOS) release notes to ensure compatibility with your hardware and connected devices.
- Determine the upgrade path:
- Plan the upgrade hops required to reach the target version.
- Brocade does not support upgrading/downgrading more than two versions Jumps at a time.
- Major to major version upgrades:
- If upgrading between major versions, install the corresponding minor version first (e.g., upgrade from 8.x to 9.x by first installing 9.0.0).
- Redundancy check:
- Ensure redundant paths for critical workloads are functional.
- Health check:
- Verify all ports and overall switch health:
- switchShow
- psshow
- fanshow
- tempshow
- sensorshow
- porterrshow
- errdump
- mapsdb –show
- massam –show flash/cpu/memory
- Verify all ports and overall switch health:
- Backup logs and configuration:
- Collect logs and upload configurations to the FTP server:
- configUpload
Example:
To upload the switch configuration interactively from a switch that is not enabled for Virtual Fabrics:-
- switch:admin> configupload
- Protocol (scp, ftp, sftp, local) [ftp]: sftp
- Server Name or IP Address [host]: xxx.xx.xxx.xxx
- User Name [user]: user
- File Name [<home dir>/config.txt]:
- Section (all|chassis|switch [all]):
- Password: ******
- configUpload complete: All config parameters are uploaded
-
- configUpload
- Collect logs and upload configurations to the FTP server:
- Initiate firmware upgrade:
- Use the firmwareDownload command to download firmware to the switch:
- firmwareDownload
Example:
To download firmware interactively:-
- switch:admin> firmwaredownload
- Server Name or IP Address: 192.0.2.0
- User Name: admin
- File Name: /admin/dist
- Network Protocol(1-auto-select, 2-FTP, 3-SCP, 4-SFTP, 5-HTTP) [1]: 4
- Do you want to input SCP/SFTP options (Y/N) [N]: y
- Verifying if the public key authentication is available.Please wait …
- The public key authentication is not available.
- Password:
- Do you want to continue with CRA (Y/N)[N]:
- Do you accept and agree to the terms outlined in the End User License Agreement(EULA) for this product? Please respond with (Y/y) to Accept, (N/n) to Not accept, or (D/d) to display the EULA : Y
- Checking system settings for firmwaredownload…
- System settings check passed.
- You can run firmwaredownloadstatus to get the status of this command. This command will cause a warm/non-disruptive boot but will require that existing telnet, secure telnet or SSH sessions be restarted.
- Do you want to continue (Y/N) [Y]: y
-
- firmwareDownload
- Use the firmwareDownload command to download firmware to the switch:
- Upgrade OS:
- Brocade switches have two flash partitions: primary and secondary.
- During the firmware upgrade:
- The primary partition becomes the secondary.
- The secondary partition becomes the primary.
- Firmware is first installed on the new primary partition (previously secondary), triggering a reboot.
- Commit firmware:
- The switch checks all components post-reboot.
- If everything works correctly, the new firmware is committed to the secondary partition (previously primary).
- The partitions then revert to their original roles.
- Additional Firmware Commands
-
- Commit the firmware manually:
firmwareCommit - Restore firmware to a previous version:
firmwareRestore - Check firmware download status:
firmwareDownloadStatus - Manually reboot and commit firmware:
firmwareDownload -s - Install firmware from USB:
firmwareDownload -u
- Commit the firmware manually: