Technical data

4-12 Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide
Publication Number: 53-0000518-09
Maintaining Firmware
4
During the upgrade process, the director fails over to its standby CP blade and the IP addresses for the
two logical switches move to that CP blade's Ethernet port. This might cause informational ARP
address reassignment messages to appear on other switches in the fabric. This is normal behavior,
because the association between the IP addresses and MAC addresses has changed.
Summary of the Upgrade Process
The following summary describes the default behavior of the firmwareDownload command (without
options) on SilkWorm 12000, 24000, and 48000 directors:
1. You enter the firmwareDownload command on the active CP blade.
2. The standby CP blade downloads firmware.
3. The standby CP blade reboots and comes up with the new Fabric OS.
4. The active CP blade synchronizes its state with the standby CP blade.
5. The active CP blade forces a failover and reboots to become the standby CP blade.
6. The new standby CP blade (the active CP blade before the failover) downloads firmware.
7. The new standby CP blade reboots and comes up with the new Fabric OS.
8. The new active CP blade synchronizes its state with the new standby CP blade.
9. The firmwareCommit command runs automatically on both CP blades.
SilkWorm 12000, 24000, and 48000 Upgrade Procedure
SilkWorm 12000 directors have four IP addresses: one for each of the two logical switches (switch 0
and switch 1) and one for each of the two CP blades (CP0 in slot 5 and CP1 in slot 6). The SilkWorm
24000 director in its default configuration has three IP addresses but can be configured for four. The
SilkWorm 48000 does not support two domains, hence, you can use only three IP addresses.
C
aution
To successfully download firmware to a director you must have an active Ethernet connection on both
CPs.
N
ote
After you start the process, do not enter any disruptive commands (such as reboot) that will interrupt the
process. The entire firmware download and commit process takes approximately 15 minutes. If there is a
problem, wait for the timeout (30 minutes for network problems; 10 minutes for incorrect IP address).
Disrupting the process can render the switch inoperable and require you to seek help from Customer
Support.
Do not disconnect the switch from power during the process, because the switch could become
inoperable upon reboot.
N
ote
By default, the firmwareDownload command automatically upgrades both the active CP blade and the
standby CP blade. When upgrading a SilkWorm 12000 that is running v4.0.0c or earlier, you must
upgrade each CP blade separately, as described in “To upgrade a single Silkworm 12000/24000 CP
blade” on page F-2. (You should not use this procedure under normal circumstances.)