Partitioning

PICOS 4.0.0 have multiple system partitions including PicOS (partition size: 2G), PicOS2 (partition size: 2G) and User-Data partitions. Among them, PicOS and PicOS2 are two independent system boot partitions. One of them is the active partition on which the running system resides, and the other is the inactive partition. The two-system-boot-partition feature allows the system to be reverted to a previous version of the installed software package when it fails to upgrade PICOS.

User-Data partition is a reserved partition which is not affected by ONIE installer and upgrade unless user manually removes it. User-Data partition uses all the available space left on the disk after installation. Users can use this partition to store files and data.

Supported Platforms

PICOS 4.x software requires to run on a high performance device, only the platforms listed in Switch Machine Outline and System Characteristics are supported upgrading to PICOS 4.x.

Preparation before Upgrading

Table 1 Checklist before Upgrading

Checking the Running PicOS Version

Use the version command to check the version of the running system software.

admin@Xorplus:~$ version
Copyright (C) 2009-2021 Pica8, Inc.
===================================
Hardware Model                : as7312_54x
Linux System Version/Revision : 4.0.0/4b5f523
Linux System Released Date    : 4/27/2021
L2/L3 Version/Revision        : 4.0.0/4b5f523
L2/L3 Released Date           : 4/27/2021
OVS/OF Version/Revision       : 4.0.0/4b5f523
OVS/OF Released Date          : 4/27/2021

Building Upgrade Environment

Please make sure that you have set up an HTTP, TFTP or FTP protocol upgrading environment, the basic requirements are as follows:

• PC can log in to the device through serial or SSH.

• The communication between the server and the device works well.

• The upgrading file used by the device has already been stored on the server.

Getting the Required Upgrade Software

Please contact Pica8 technical support engineers at the following website for the latest version of upgrade software.

https://www.pica8.com/support/

Backing up Important Data in Flash

Before upgrading, save the important data in Flash to the local PC through FTP or TFTP, and then upload it to the switch after the upgrade is completed.

Checking the Available Flash Space

Use the df -h command to check the available flash space for saving the upgrade package.

admin@Xorplus:~$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          1.5G  655M  715M  48% /
/dev/root       1.5G  655M  715M  48% /
tmpfs           199M  192K  199M   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs            10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs           398M     0  398M   0% /run/shm
tmpfs            50M   50M     0 100% /tmp

Upgrading Notes

•   Downgrade from PICOS version 4.x to 3.x or to a lower version is NOT supported by using upgrade command. You can use ONIE installation when you want to downgrade. For details about ONIE installation, please refer to Installing PICOS on Bare Metal Switches.
• License check is performed for upgrade:

• • If PICOS has a license installed before the upgrade, the license will be copied and activated after the upgrade. Please check this section for the PICOS Licenses.

• • If there is no license installed prior to upgrade, upgrade2 process can proceed but only the first four ports and the first two uplink ports (if exist) on the newly upgraded system can be used.
  • If the license has expired, it is not allowed to upgrade a major release (e.g. 4.1 to 4.2). However, it will not affect upgrading to a minor release (e.g. 4.1.1 to 4.1.2).

•   You can log in to the switch through its console port or using SSH. After successful login, you can run commands on the command line interface (CLI) to upgrade the device.

•   When using FTP/TFTP to download the image, user should verify that the "binary" mode is being used. If the "binary" transfer mode is not being used, the image might be modified during download, and the upgrade will fail during the MD5 check.

•   When upgrading, the installer checks whether there is a user-data partition. If there exists a User-Data partition, the installer only rewrites the running system boot partition (PicOS/ PicOS2) and installs the new installation package to this partition. However, if there is no User-Data partition, the installer removes all the partitions to rebuild a brand new NOS.

•   All X86 platforms share one installation and upgrade package with the name fixed as: onie-installer-picos-VERSION-x86.bin, where VERSION is the release version. X86 platforms are listed below:

•  Edgecore AS4630-54PE
•  Edgecore AS5712-54X 
•  Edgecore AS5812-54T
•  Edgecore AS5812-54X
•  Edgecore AS7312-54X
•  Edgecore AS7326-56X
•  Edgecore AS7712-32X
•  Edgecore AS7726-32X
•  Edgecore AS7816-64X

•  Edgecore AS5835-54X
•  DELL N3248P-ON
•  DELL N3248PXE-ON
•  DELL N3224PX-ON
•  DELL N3248X-ON
•  DELL S4048-ON
•  DELL S4148F-ON
•  DELL S4148T-ON
•  DELL S4128F-ON
•  DELL S5224F-ON
•  DELL S5296F-ON  

•  DELL S5212F-ON

•  DELL S5248F-ON

•  DELL Z9100-ON

•  DELL Z9264F-ON

•  DELL N3224T-ON

•  DELL S4128T-ON

Usage of Upgrade Command

PICOS upgrade is done via the command "upgrade" in bash (launching a shell script named "upgrade.sh"). This script will upgrade the image and back up configuration files automatically.

The format of the upgrade package is *.bin. 

The option no-md5-check is removed from PICOS 3.7.0 and later versions. If there is an MD5 file in the /cftmp directory, the upgrade script will check package integrity with MD5. Else if there is no MD5 file in the /cftmp directory, then skip the MD5 check step.

The option factory-default is used to reset the configuration to factory default when performing upgrade. This option retains the license files from the previous version.

If you want to backup a file during upgrade, use option backup-file=(*.lst) to define your own backup file list. The usage of option backup-file=(*.lst) is described in the below section.

Usage of Backup-file=(*.lst) Option

During the upgrade process, the switch can automatically back up the following files in the following directories from the previous PICOS system:

If you want to save user files that are not in the above default backup file list, you need to first create or specify a .lst file and then add all those files that need to be backed up to this .lst file. You can use the backup-file=(*.lst) option to achieve this, where (*.lst) is the user created file with .lst format or specify the path to this file, for example:

admin@XorPlus:~$ sudo upgrade backup-file=/admin/back_files.lst onie-installer-picos-4.0.1-x86.bin

For example, if you want to backup /home/admin/a.txt file during the process, then add /home/admin/a.txt to back_files.lst.In this example, back_files.lst is a user created file. The user has already added the file to back_files.lst that needs to be saved in the event of power off.

admin@XorPlus:~$ cat /admin/back_files.lst
 /home/admin/a.txt

The above operations ensure that user can backup their important files with backup-file=(*.lst) option during the upgrade process.

Upgrading Procedure

The upgrading procedure in this document gives an example of upgrading AS7312-54X from PICOS 4.0.0 to 4.0.1.    

admin@XorPlus:~$ sudo scp pica8@10.10.50.16:/tftp/build/4.0.1/as7312_54x/onie-installer-picos-4.0.1-x86.bin /cftmp
admin@XorPlus:~$ sudo scp pica8@10.10.50.16:/tftp/build/4.0.1/as7312_54x/onie-installer-picos-4.0.1-x86.bin.md5 /cftmp

Step3       Execute the sync operation.

admin@XorPlus:~$ sync

Step4       Change directory to /cftmp.

admin@XorPlus:~$ cd /cftmp
admin@XorPlus:/cftmp$

Step5       Run the upgrade command.

admin@XorPlus:/cftmp$ sudo upgrade onie-installer-picos-4.0.1-x86.bin

After finishing upgrade will reboot automatically, the system will come up running the new network operating system.

Verifying Version after Upgrading 

admin@Xorplus:~$ version
Copyright (C) 2009-2021 Pica8, Inc.
===================================
Hardware Model                : as7312_54x
Linux System Version/Revision    : 4.0.1/cc8d268
Linux System Released Date       : 5/18/2021
L2/L3 Version/Revision           : 4.0.1/cc8d268
L2/L3 Released Date             : 5/18/2021
OVS/OF Version/Revision         : 4.0.1/cc8d268
OVS/OF Released Date           : 5/18/2021

Appendix: Troubleshooting Installation/Upgrade Failure on AS7326-56X

Installation or upgrade failure (for example, the switches cannot boot up after install) may occur on the old AS7326-56X hardware models (revision is R01F and before). When booting PICOS on AS7326-56X and detect hardware rev R01F, the system will log a warning message to prompt the hardware revision R01F is a pre-production hardware reversion: "This hardware revision R01F is a pre-production hardware rev, PICOS has applied a work around to work with PICOS. Support will be provided on a best effort basis". 

To work around the issue, first we need to check the “Label Revision”. If it is an old hardware model (revision is R01F or before), then, we can perform the following provided solution after installation/upgrade to solve the problem.

Check Label Revision

Under ONIE prompt, run “onie_syseeprom” to get the “Label Revision”.

ONIE:/ # onie-syseeprom
TlvInfo Header:
   Id String:    TlvInfo
   Version:      1
   Total Length: 166
TLV Name             Code Len Value
-------------------- ---- --- -----
Manufacture Date     0x25  19 04/27/2019 02:10:06
Label Revision       0x27   4 R01B
Platform Name        0x28  27 x86_64-accton_as7326_56x-r0
ONIE Version         0x29  13 2018.05.00.05
Manufacturer         0x2B   6 Accton
Diag Version         0x2E   7 0.0.1.0
Base MAC Address     0x24   6 80:A2:35:81:D5:F0
Serial Number        0x23  14 732656X1916012
Country Code         0x2C   2 TW
Part Number          0x22  13 FP4ZZ7656005A
Product Name         0x21  15 7326-56X-O-AC-F
MAC Addresses        0x2A   2 256
Vendor Name          0x2D   6 Accton
CRC-32               0xFE   4 0xC3D3F2DE
Checksum is valid.
ONIE:/ #

Solution

You can follow the steps below after installation/upgrade, to fix the problem of installation and upgrade failure on the old AS7326-56X hardware model (revision R01F or before).

Step1         Power cycle the switch.

Step2         From the GRUB menu, choose “ONIE” to enter ONIE GRUB menu:

 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | PicOS                                                                      | 
 |*ONIE                                                                       |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            | 
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
      Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.          
      Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands       
      before booting or `c' for a command-line. 

Step3         From ONIE GRUB menu, choose “ONIE: Rescue” to launch ONIE in Rescue mode.

                          GNU GRUB  version 2.02~beta2+e4a1fe391
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | ONIE: Install OS                                                           | 
 |*ONIE: Rescue                                                               |
 | ONIE: Uninstall OS                                                         |
 | ONIE: Update ONIE                                                          |
 | ONIE: Embed ONIE                                                           |
 | DIAG: Accton Diagnostic                                                    |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                                                            | 
 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 

Step4         Press Enter to display the ONIE prompt.

Step5         Mount PicOS partition with label is “PicOS”.

ONIE:/ # blkid 
/dev/sda7: LABEL="User-Data" UUID="be63cef8-4560-4c48-ab5a-8f7ced5a950b"
/dev/sda6: LABEL="PicOS2" UUID="f589e53f-4cd1-44ba-8384-f339f4e2b2ac"
/dev/sda5: LABEL="PicOS" UUID="8ca5f7ed-5a15-4a2a-944c-4d8872647bf5"
/dev/sda4: LABEL="PICOS-GRUB" UUID="782a1372-4b66-4783-b920-dab1df8ec6e4"
/dev/sda3: LABEL="ACCTON-DIAG" UUID="3e4117d0-1926-472a-9d9e-08883df83d40"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="ONIE-BOOT" UUID="1a90abd8-f065-4f7a-90a0-af122b8805fa"
ONIE:/ # 
ONIE:/ # mount /dev/sda5 /mnt

Step6         Execute the following command to modify the I2C access address.

ONIE:/ # sed -I "s/0x57/0x56/" /mnt/etc/rc_hw.sh
ONIE:/ # sync

Step7         Unmount the PicOS partition.

ONIE:/ # unmount /dev/sda5

Step8         Reboot the switch.

ONIE:/ # reboot