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.

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.

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:

•   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: