[c-nsp] 65xx/76xx ROMMON Firmware Was: Re: SXI4a or SXI5

[Lamar Owen]

On Sunday, November 14, 2010 01:04:04 pm Jared Mauch wrote:
> 
> On Nov 14, 2010, at 12:12 PM, ML wrote:
> > I've often wondered if people pay attention to the firmware of their linecards.
> > 
> > I wonder how many people know there is another level of software at play and that it could be upgraded at all..
> 
> We regularly update these as part of our process.

One would think that Cisco could do with these boxes what they do (or at least did) with the 12K; at least on GRP, up through 12.0(32)S12, the various ROMMONs and other firmware pieces are in the IOS image, and using 'service upgrade {rommon|mbus-agent-rom|fabric-loader|all}' is available to make it automatic.  And that includes those pieces for the RP itself.

Oh, but that's a different BU, no?  Or would the images just get too crazy large (sounds like ASR is doing that if images are in the hundreds of megs like I seem to remember was posted a week or two ago) for other platforms?

On ancient Catalyst 8500 the FPGA bitstreams were separately packaged, too.  I don't have one running right now to check if the other firmware for the linecards that needed firmware were included in the IOS image or not.

Same thing for Catalyst 5500, firmware for linecards that needed it (ATM modules, the nine-port Gigabit EtherChannel, and the RSM/RSFC) were packaged separately.

The 12K way has me spoiled, to put it mildly.  If I need to put in another LC, and that LC happens to have old ROMMON or fabloader firmware, it just gets upgraded and you keep on trucking when the card is inserted, if the firmware is appropriate for the card.  Of course, there are other niggles with 12K, but I digress.  And I don't have anything newer than Engine 2, so Cisco might have changed things for Engines 3 and up for all I know.