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Upgrading CX switches using Central

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  • 1.  Upgrading CX switches using Central

    Posted Nov 03, 2022 02:52 PM
    Hello community,

    we just had a two hour session of testing the upgrading behaviour of CX switches using Central, because we have a big upgrade coming on Sunday.

    We asked ourselves, should we upgrade to the secondary partition or to the primary? 
    So we tested all kind of upgrade scenarios.

    Now, I have a small quiz for you: 

    We have a 6100 CX switch running 10.09.1040 on primary as default boot, 10.06.0150 on secondary
    We set the compliance to "Install on: secondary / Version: 10.10.1010"
    What is Central doing?

    A) uploading 10.10.1010 to secondary and booting secondary
    B) uploading 10.10.1010 do primary and booting primary
    C) uploading 10.10.1010 to secondary but booting primary, then uploading 10.10.1010 to primary and booting primary again
    D) uploading 10.10.1010 to primary and booting secondary, then uploading 10.10.1010 to secondary and booting secondary


    The correct answer is C!
    Central loads the firmware in the correct partition but doesn't set the boot partition. If you don't enable automatic reboots, the switch is then flagged as "ready to reboot" and you can click the reboot button to reboot the switch.
    Then the switch reloads the untouched primary image. After it comes online again, it connects to Central, Central sees the still old firmware and pushes the firmware again. This time into the primary partition. Then it is flagged "ready for reboot" again.
    You click the reboot button, the switch loads the primary image, which is now the correct one. And after some time comes online in Central and is marked as "compliant".


    I would expect Central to leave the primary partition untouched, push the image to secondary and set secondary as default boot, then boot the switch from secondary.
    Am I just not getting what a "install the firmware in the secondary partition" means? 


    Is this only affecting our customer or can you also see this behaviour?

    ------------------------------
    Thanks,
    Bjarne
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Upgrading CX switches using Central

    Posted Nov 04, 2022 04:45 AM
    Hi Bjarne, that's very interesting (I'm not an Aruba Central expert but I'm curious about that), you asked:

    "Am I just not getting what a "install the firmware in the secondary partition" means?"

    For what is worth, IMHO, that setting means exactly that and only that...it will install (flash) the provided AOS-CX software image into the selected Flash Memory area (Primary or Secondary) without setting the switch to boot (from) that particular Flash Memory area and the Switch will continue to (re)boot on the Flash Memory area set (Primary in this case)...at least that's what I think.

    Should Aruba Central do that automatically according to the selected Flash Memory area which was flashed with desired software image?

    Probably yes, otherwise the switch is going to be "forced" by Central to perform one more unnecessary reboot (because Central first needs to recognize that the Switch (re)booted from a Flash Memory area containing a software image older than the one - or not aligned with the one - already flashed during the first attempt.

    Right?
    Original Message


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