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  • 1.  EX2300 Upgrade path 20.4R3-S2.6 to 21.4R3-S2.4

    Posted 04-07-2023 06:00

    Hello All,

    Could you please share your experience and expertise regarding the Upgrade Path?

    How you determine which is the best and possible path for upgrade and how you do a rollback scenario?

    My case is that a group of EX2300 switches in the infrastructure  are with version of JunOS 20.4R3-S2.6 and they are with High CPU Usage, this CPU usage started 1 year ago and continue to these days and I see only one option to do upgrade.

    Regarding JunOS 20.4R3-S2.6  I know that  End of Engineering date  is 12/25/2023 and  End of Support date is 06/25/2024.

    I have image junos-arm-32-21.4R3-S2.4.tgz.

    For Junos OS 21.4 I know  End of Engineering 12/20/2024 and End of Support 06/20/2025.

    My questions are:

    1 Do you see any issues in this upgrade path from JunOS 20.4R3-S2.6 to JunOS 21.4R3-S2.4?

    For now my colleague did find this PR  Juniper Networks - Problem Report Search regarding image validation but it's not a issue.

    2 If this upgrade path is not acceptable how you determine which upgrade path is best option and from which images to which image you could jump?

    3 How you prepare yourself for Rollback scenario? Could you please share your methods?

    4 Before upgrade do you do any other actions?

    I did find this feature for backup, do yo use it or not?:

    Backing Up an Installation Using Snapshots (Junos OS) | Junos OS | Juniper Networks

     

    I did find this procedure for upgrade standalone EX switch:

    [EX] Upgrading Junos on EX2300 and EX3400 (juniper.net)

     

    Also I did find this procedure for upgrade EX switches in VC (stacked switches):

    [EX] How to upgrade the software version for an EX-Series Switch Virtual Chassis environment (juniper.net)

    Could you please share your opinion regarding the topic?

    Thank you in advance.



  • 2.  RE: EX2300 Upgrade path 20.4R3-S2.6 to 21.4R3-S2.4

    Posted 04-12-2023 07:52

    Hi,

    Yes we went from 20.4R3-S2.6 directly to 21.4R3-S2.4 you just need to use the no-validate option when requesting the upgrade due to the change in FreeBSD versions

    Before upgrade we normally do a recovery snapshot, save the rescue config and then make sure there is the most recent version of the config on our ftp backup server, in the event that there is an issue we can just reinstall the old OS from a usb and load the config file. Most of the time if it fails during the upgrade then it will just revert to the old version and then you can re-copy the upgrade file and try again.



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    HARRY
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  • 3.  RE: EX2300 Upgrade path 20.4R3-S2.6 to 21.4R3-S2.4

    Posted 04-13-2023 08:59

    quick word of caution: i got myself in real trouble using the no-validate when upgrading to 22.3
    this image does not support both me0 (management interface) and vme active at the same time
    when upgrading to 22.3, I used no validate out of lazy habit, so the image installed correctly with no warning that the running configuration was incompatible.
    when I scheduled a reboot for the new image to take effect, I lost access to the switch :-(.  
    when reviewing log, I saw later that after failing to start with the running config, the switch attempted to use the rescue config, but since I had be careful befor restart to update it with the running config, the switch just said to go ... myself and I had to connect console to regain access. 
    I later tested upgrading to 22.3 without the no-validate, and the image refused to install, correctly pointing the problem with both interfaces on .






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    Michel Lapointe
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