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Catalyst 2960 SwitchSoftware Configuration Guide
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AppendixB Working with the Cisco IOS File System, Configuration Files, and Software Images
Working with Software Images
The download algorithm verifies that the image is appropriate for the switch model and that enough
DRAM is present, or it aborts the process and reports an error. If you spec ify the /overwrite option, the
download algorithm removes the existing image on the flash device whether or not it is the same as the
new one, downloads the new image, and then reloads the software.
Note If the flash device has sufficient space to hold two images and you want to overwrite one of thes e images
with the same version, you must specify the /overwrite option.
If you specify the /leave-old-sw, the existing files are not removed. If there is not enough room to install
the new image an keep the running image, the download process stops, and an error message is
displayed.
The algorithm installs the downloaded image onto the system board flash device (flash:). The imag e is
placed into a new directory named with the software version string, and the BOOT environment variable
is updated to point to the newly installed image.
If you kept the old software during the download process (you specified the /leave-old-sw keyword), you
can remove it by entering the delete /force /recursive filesystem:/file-url privileged EXEC command.
For filesystem, use flash: for the system board flash device. For file-url, enter the directory name of the
old software image. All the files in the directory and the direc tory are removed.
Caution For the download and upload algorithms to operate properly, do not rename image names.
Uploading an Image File By Using RCP
You can upload an image from the switch to an RCP server. You can later download this image to the
same switch or to another switch of the same type.
The upload feature should be used only if the web mana gement pages associated with the embedded
device manager have been installed with the existing image.
Step7 archive download-sw /leave-old-sw /reload
rcp:[[[//[username@]location]/directory]/image-na
me.tar]
Download the image file from the RCP server to the switch,
and keep the current image.
•The /leave-old-sw option keeps the old software version
after a download.
•The /reload option reloads the system after
downloading the image unless the configuration has
been changed and not been saved.
•For //username, specify the username. For the RCP copy
request to execute, an account must be defined on the
network server for the remote username. For more
information, see the “Preparing to Download or Upload
an Image File By Using RCP” section on pageB-29.
•For @location, specify the IP address of the RCP server.
•For /directory]/image-name.tar, specify the directory
(optional) and the image to download. Directory and
image names are case sensitive.
Command Purpose