[c-nsp] NPE-300 -> NPE-G1 upgrade

[Justin M. Streiner]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Rick Ernst wrote:

> I'm looking at upgrading from NPE-300s on 7206VXRs to NPE-G1 to support
> OC-3 vs DS-3.  I'm currently running 12.1(22)E1 and it looks like that will
> support the NPE-G1.
>
> Any gotchas before I do this upgrade?

I take it you're using either PCMCIA flash cards or ATA flash disks in 
the I/O controller for storage on your existing setup?

1) If you plan on using the gig-e ports on the G1 right away, or you're 
using a port/ports on the I/O controller and need to migrate away from 
them, you should download a copy of your config prior to making any 
hardware changes.  Make the necessary changes offline, then upload the 
config back to the router and proceed with gotcha 2)

2) I'd definitely recommend having a copy of your config easily available. 
What you may be able to do is get a PCMCIA compact flash adapter at one of 
your local electronics stores and copy the config from your old hardware 
configuration to the compact flash card that will go in your NPE-G1.  The 
caveat would be if the G1 doesn't recognize the files on the CF card if it 
was formatted on the old hardware.  I don't recall having any problems 
like this when I did an NPE-300 to NPE-G1 upgrade about two years ago, but 
as always, YMMV.

If for some reason the G1 doesn't recognize the files, keep a copy of the 
config and the images you need on a TFTP server on a machine you can 
access easily during the upgrade (laptop, etc).  If that happens, you'll 
need to boot the router with the NPE-G1 installed and create a minimal 
configuration to get the router to talk to the TFTP server so you can 
copy the config and image files onto the router after you format the 
flash device.

jms