[c-nsp] Catalyst 4500-E ROMMON Upgrade Caveat

[Sebastian Wiesinger]

Just a quick warning for people trying to upgrade a Cat4500-E with
SUP6-E to 12.2(54)SG.

The release notes for Cat4500
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst4500/release/note/OL_5184.html
state that you need a new ROMMON (12.2(44r)SG5) when installing the
new IOS on a SUP6-E.

There is a section "Upgrading the Supervisor Engine ROMMON Remotely
Using Telnet":
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst4500/release/note/OL_5184.html#wp466212

This section says that you should do a:

boot system flash bootflash:cat4500-e-ios-promupgrade-122_44r_SG5
boot system flash bootflash:cat4500e-ipbasek9-mz.122-54.SG.bin
(remove all other boot entries)

After that the system should upgrade the rommon and then boot the IOS.
Quote:

    Use the boot system flash bootflash:file_name command to set the BOOT
    variable. You will use two BOOT commands: one to upgrade the ROMMON and a
    second to load the Cisco IOS software image after the ROMMON upgrade is
    complete. Notice the order of the BOOT variables in the example below. At
    bootup the first BOOT variable command upgrades the ROMMON. When the upgrade is
    complete the supervisor engine will autoboot, and the second BOOT variable
    command will load the Cisco IOS software image specified by the second BOOT
    command.


This is NOT the case!

The system is endlessy upgrading the ROMMON, looping until stopped
with CTRL-C via console. You can then manually boot the new IOS.

So DO NOT upgrade the system unless you have console access!

Kind Regards

Sebastian

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