/posts/ 2016/upgrading-hp-procurve-2824
Feb 27, 2016
Warning: This post was written 3190 days ago, and may contain incorrect information, outdated opinions, and incorrect language due to my age at the time. Opinions in this post are not representative of who I am as a person today.
As it turns out, the “new” switch i’ve acquired was very out of date in regards to firmware. A few bugs have been fixed and some silly Java problems have been resolved on the Web UI, so its worth taking the time to update it.
First of all, check what firmware and boot ROM your switch is using using the show flash command on the CLI:
sw3# show flash
Image Size(Bytes) Date Version
----- ---------- -------- -------
Primary Image : 3003952 12/21/05 I.08.87
Secondary Image : 3003952 12/21/05 I.08.87
Boot Rom Version: I.08.07
Current Boot : Primary
All firmware versions I.08.07 onwards need the I.08.07 Boot ROM, and you’ll need to flash up to this version first. Thankfully HP provide that specific version on the website to download. Follow the exact same steps as below for I.08.07, then repeat for whatever version you’re upgrading to.
To get the firmware to the switch we use a TFTP server, a little out of scope for this article but you can find a lot of free and open source servers for this, i’m using my local pfSense gateway’s TFTP server for this, i’ve uploaded the I_10_107.swi firmware file to the TFTP and from the switch’s CLI I run the following:
sw3# copy tftp flash 10.1.1.1 I_10_107.swi secondary
The Secondary OS Image will be deleted, continue [y/n]? y
03261K
After a few seconds you’ll be back at the prompt. To check everything has worked as expected check the show flash command:
sw3# show flash
Image Size(Bytes) Date Version
----- ---------- -------- -------
Primary Image : 3003952 12/21/05 I.08.87
Secondary Image : 3428242 08/24/15 I.10.107
Boot Rom Version: I.08.07
Current Boot : Primary
All you need to do is reboot the switch with the new firmware, check everything works, then flash over the image to the primary flash storage:
sw3# boot system flash secondary
Device will be rebooted, do you want to continue [y/n]?
Once the system is up and working, use show flash again to check its booted to the secondary area.
sw3# show flash
Image Size(Bytes) Date Version
----- ---------- -------- -------
Primary Image : 3003952 12/21/05 I.08.87
Secondary Image : 3428242 08/24/15 I.10.107
Boot Rom Version: I.08.07
Current Boot : Secondary
And if everything is working as expected, flash the firmware over to the primary image exactly the same way as before
sw3# copy tftp flash 10.1.1.1 I_10_107.swi primary
The Primary OS Image will be deleted, continue [y/n]? y
03261K
For the final (optional) step, switch back to the primary image:
sw3# boot system flash primary
Device will be rebooted, do you want to continue [y/n]?
And you’re all done.