Chapter 5 Software Upgrade Procedure

The application software is field upgradable. The upgrade procedure and the required equipment is described in the following section.

Note that once the system is up, it is controlled by an executing application image residing in the flash memory. No software upgrade is possible during this mode. The upgrade can only be done when the system is resetting. To initiate this sequence, the user must set the “boot mode” configuration parameter to “Boot from Net” during normal operation, and then perform a “reset”. When the Boot-from-NET option is set, Bootstrap can start the system with an image residing on a TFTP server on the network. In such a setup, a console terminal is connected to the console port, and a TFTP server in the network is connected to one of the Ethernet ports. A network can be as simple as an Ethernet Hub.

The upgrade procedure is as follow:

1. Set “Boot from Net” option during the normal operation.
2. Verify information such as the IP address for the TFTP Server, Gateway IP address, and the file name and its path of the new image. The bootstrap process allows for those items to be changed via the console.
3. Restart the system with “Boot from Net” set.
4. Bootstrap will retrieve the new image then pass control to it.
5. The system executes the new image.

Note that the previous image in the flash will not be replaced by the new image using this option. The image in the flash will be over-written if “Boot from Net and Saved” option is selected.

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