Information Systems:Upgrading firmware on the WiNG AP7532 wireless access points

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Summary

  • Back up the configuration prior to upgrading the firmware.
  • Firmware releases (as of November 2017) are frequent and contain useful features and fixes. Keeping up-to-date is a good idea.
  • Firmware images are uploaded to the controller and then deployed from the controller to adopted APs.
  • A version mismatch between the controller and adopted APs prevents any changes to the settings from being pushed out to adopted APs. In other words, resolve any version mismatches by upgrading ASAP.
  • Firmware images can be loaded onto the controller/APs, but a reload or reboot needs to be performed to run the new code.
  • Each AP has a primary and secondary partition for failsafe booting. New firmware images will always be loaded into the non-running partition, and the system will know to boot from that partition next time (to use the new version) unless otherwise specified.
  • Firmware can be downloaded from Extreme Networks portal.
  • There are usually two versions of a firmware (included in the same zip file) - a 'LEAN' version, and the full version.

Procedure for upgrading the firmware

Backing up the configuration (using CLI)

A backup of the running and startup config can and should be done when making any large changes to how the AP's behave. The following are the steps involved in creating a backup configuration file:

  1. Connect to the controller AP via Putty and login
  2. Type enable and press enter
  3. Type copy running-config ftp://user:password@ftp.unipharm.com/configsave and press enter
  4. Type copy startup-config ftp://user:password@ftp.unipharm.com/startupsave and press enter
  • You can use any valid FTP user account to dump these 2 files into, just substitute user for the username and type out the password for the password portion of the command
  • To do a restore of the saved files use the following example
  1. Type enable
  2. Type copy ftp://user:password@ftp.unipharm.com/configsave startup-config
  3. Type reload
  4. The access point will prompt for a reboot which should be answered with a yes and to save the current configuration which should be answered with a no
  5. Link to KB article https://gtacknowledge.extremenetworks.com/articles/How_To/How-to-backup-or-restore-WiNG-config-via-CLI


Backing up the configuration (using GUI)

  1. Link to KB article https://extremeportal.force.com/ExtrArticleDetail?an=000082116

Upgrading the firmware

Note 1: This is only one way to upgrade the firmware. There are many other ways to perform a firmware upgrade - consult the docs if an alternative method is desired!
Note 2: This assumes you are running an FTP server. I run one FileZilla Server my desktop -norwizzle (talk)

Upgrading the virtual controller

  1. Download new firmware from the Extreme Networks support portal.
  2. If zipped, unzip to a folder that can be accessed via FTP.
  3. Log in to the controller.
  4. Navigate to Operations. On the left panel, drill down to the controller AP. Click on it.
  5. The Summary tab will display the firmware state for the specific device (in this case the controller).
  6. Click the Firmware Upgrade button.
  7. Select FTP and enter the credentials. Personally, I just put the image in the root FTP directory. -norwizzle (talk).
  8. Make sure to specify the correct filename in the Path/File field. Since this is the controller, do not use the LEAN version, as this image has no UI. Include the extension (.img) when specifying the filename.
  9. At this point the firmware is uploaded to the other boot partition (whichever of 'primary' or 'secondary' is not currently in use).
  10. The controller AP does not host much wireless client activity (by design). Thus, it is safe to reload this in the middle of the day (just double check the list of connected clients).
Reloading will not disrupt function of the other APs, nor will it upgrade them to the same version.

Upgrading the adopted APs

Reminder: I would upgrade the controller first.

  1. Carrying on from the previous step, click the Adopted Device Upgrade tab (next to Summary), then the Device Image File sub-tab. This area is for specifying the firmware images for adopted APs.
  2. Perform the same process as in uploading the controller image, but instead uploading the LEAN version of the firmware. Adopted APs actually could still run the full version also, but the LEAN version is more efficient.
  3. Click the Device Upgrade List sub-tab. This lists adopted devices and their current version. The 'Upload Version' column should now also reflect the newly uploaded version.
  4. Use this screen to plan a scheduled upgrade. The options allow you to schedule upgrades for different APs at different times - use your own judgment to come up with a scheme. For example, the following settings could be applied to ap-hhc, ap-receiving and ap-largedown to schedule and upgrade and reload for late night and early next morning, respectively:

extreme-adoptedap-upgrade.jpg

A few more things to keep in mind when using this screen:

  • The schedule options are applied by selecting devices and then hitting Upgrade Firmware. So set the options, select the devices, and hit 'Upgrade Firmware'. Then reconfigure, select different devices, and hit 'Upgrade Firmware' again to set additional schedules for a different group of APs.
  • The 'Upgrade Progress' bar will continuously display waiting until the scheduled upgrade(s) is complete.
  • ap-spare can probably be upgraded and reloaded immediately if you want to test.
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