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Upgrading your router's IOS is a critical operation. You need to be careful and cautious with every command you write. Take a look on these hints and tips before you start upgrading.
1. Before considering upgrading, evaluate the real need to a
new IOS. If your current IOS covers all the jobs that you need the router to
do, no upgrade is needed. Upgrade is usually necessary when you are adding new
hardware, the router is not capable of handling what you want, or there is a
problem with the old IOS. Sometime there appear to be some security glitches in
the IOS so you might need to upgrade even if the router is performing smoothly.
2. To see the contents of the flash and check for the
available space use the following command,
Router#show flash
if your router has PCMCIA flash, use this command instead,
Router#show slot0:
and
Router#show slot1:
3. If the space is not enough for the old and new copies of
IOS together, you will have to erase the old one. DO NOT do that manually using
‘delete flash:XXXXX.bin’. Once you start copying the new IOS, you will be asked
to erase or keep the old contents of the flash. If you have enough space for
both copies, do not erase the flash.
4. If the flash of your router is Class B and have more than
one bank, you can partition the flash. Partitioning the flash is useful in any
copying operations because the router would be able to hold and maintain two
different copies of IOS files. Partitioning protects you of risking erasing the
old copy of IOS accidentally while upgrading.
5. DO NOT change the IOS file name; neither the old one nor
the new one. You must have full understanding of the IOS file name conventions.
You can find a brief description of the meanings of the IOS file name here .
6. It is always safer to do the upgrade through TFTP server
and not through Xmodem. TFTP server’s software is easy to master and free.
7. When upgrading through HyperTerminal (Xmodem), DO NOT
reload the router before the whole copying process is complete.
8. If you have more than one IOS file on the flash and you
do not know which one is currently loaded, use the ‘show version’ command to
find the name of the loaded IOS file.
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