B-21
Catalyst 3750-E and 3560-E Switch Software Configuration Guide
OL-9775-02
AppendixB Working with the Cisco IOS File System, Configuration Files, and Software Images
Working with Software Images
You upload a switch image file to a TFTP, FTP, or RCP server for backup purposes. You can use this
uploaded image for future downloads to the same switch or to another of the same type.
The protocol that you use depends on which type of server you are using. The FTP and RCP transport
mechanisms provide faster performance and more reliable delivery of data than TFTP. These
improvements are possible because FTP and RCP are built on and use the TCP/IP stack, which i s
connection-oriented.
These sections contain this configuration information:
•Image Location on the Switch, page B-21
•File Format of Images on a Server or Cisco.com, page B-21
•Copying Image Files By Using TFTP, page B-22
•Copying Image Files By Using FTP, page B-26
•Copying Image Files By Using RCP, page B-30
•Copying an Image File from One Stack Member to Another, page B-35
Note For a list of software images and the supported upgrade paths, see the release notes.
Image Location on the Switch
The Cisco IOS image is stored as a .bin file in a directory that shows the version number. A subdirectory
contains the files needed for web management. The image is stored on the system board flash memory
(flash:).
You can use the show version privileged EXEC command to see the software version that is currently
running on your switch. In the display, check the line that begins with System image file is... . It
shows the directory name in flash memory where the image is stored.
You can also use the dir filesystem: privileged EXEC command to see the directory names of other
software images that you might have stored in flash memory. You can use the archive download-sw
/directory privileged EXEC command to specify a directory once followed by a tar file or list of tar files
to be downloaded instead of specifying complete paths with each tar file. For example, in a mixed
hardware stack, you can enter archive download-sw /directory tftp://10.1.1.10/
c3750-ipservices-tar.122-35.SE.tar c3750e-universal-tar.122-35.SE2.tar.
File Format of Images on a Server or Cisco.com
Software images on a server or downloaded from Cisc o.com are in a file format, which contains the se
files:
•An info file, which serves as a table of contents for the file
•One or more subdirectories containing other images and files, such as Cisco IOS images and web
management files
This example shows some of the information contained in the info file. Tabl e B-3 provides additional
details about this information:
system_type:0x00000000:c3750e-universal-mz.122-35.SE2
image_family:C3750E
stacking_number:1.9
info_end: