Junos OS

I have an ACX1100 that I need to upgrade from it's default version (12.3X54) to a 16.1 release - I'm aware this is behind the current JTAC recommended version, but that's another issue.

I'm confused by the documentation and available releases.

16.1 release notes indicates:

Support for upgrades and downgrades that span more than three Junos OS releases at a time is not provided, except for releases that are designated as Extended End-of-Life (EEOL) releases. EEOL releases provide direct upgrade and downgrade paths—you can upgrade directly from one EEOL release to the next EEOL release even though EEOL releases generally occur in increments beyond three releases.

You can upgrade or downgrade to the EEOL release that occurs directly before or after the currently installed EEOL release, or to two EEOL releases before or after. For example, Junos OS Releases 14.1, 14.2, 15.1 and 16.1 are EEOL releases. You can upgrade from Junos OS Release 14.1 to Release 15.1 or from Junos OS Release 15.1 to Release 16.2. However, you cannot upgrade directly from a non-EEOL release that is more than three releases ahead or behind. 

The Juniper downloads page for the ACX has 12.3X54 available, but then it jumps to 15.1... am I able to jump from 12.3 to 15.1, then 16.1? The upgrade instructions seem to indicate I have to go through a 14.x version? But then the problem is, 14.x doesn't appear to be available in the ACX downloads section any more.

Any assistance here would be greatly appreciated!

- AL

Hi 

You may go from 12.3 to 15.1 and then to 16.1.

ACX is not based on freebsd so the above should hold good.  

Also it is not recommended to use "no-validate".

Hope this helps.

12.3x54 is an EEOL release for the ACX1100 so the four release jump should be supported.  Be sure to perform snapshots both prior and after upgrade.

I can verify that the jump from 12 to 15 works well but generally skipped 16 in favor of 17 for the ACX.

Also have a look at the platform specific release notes before the upgrade to review the potential issues as well.

https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos/information-products/topic-collections/release-notes/16.1/ex-series-toc.html

Hi alarivee,

Yes, agree with steve about upgrade steps - if you haven't already upgraded, thought you can also jump directly to 16.1 skipping the EEOL release 15.1 in this case.  Just need to be careful about config validation as this is a major release change, so backup the configs especially if you end up deleting a lot of config during config validation that happens during installation.

Agree with @ravi,don't use "no-validate".

Agree with @steve that 17.x is recommended over 16.x for ACX.  You can find the recommended versions here:  https://kb.juniper.net/InfoCenter/index?page=content&id=KB21476&actp=METADATA

Another thing is the image size, you might run into issues due to storage space usage sometimes even during the installation or may be later on, so use "no-copy" knob during installation:

request system software add /var/tmp/jinstall--ppc-16.1R7.8-signed.tgz no-copy

Hope this helps.

Regards,
-r.

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