Switching

Hi all,

I am trying to confirm if snapshots are recreated automatically on EX switches during software upgrades.

I have been using the “request system software add” and “request system software nonstop-upgrade” commands. I have never manually requested a spanshot.

Using the command “show system snapshot media internal" I have noticed some switches have the same Junos version on both partitions while others have two different versions.

Should I be forcing a snapshot as part of my upgrade procedure to keep the partitions in sync or should the upgrade process do this automatically for me?

Thanks

There are pros and cons for automatically snapshot after upgrade.

If you have different Junos on the partitions and something happens with the primary one, then you will boot from the alternate. Features that are available only in the primary Junos release will not be available anymore. More than that, if you have the EX in a VC, then it will stop forwarding traffic if the release is different.

But if you upgrade both partitions and then sudenly you have issues with the new release, you will need to rollback the upgrade. If the partitions have the old release and the new release, you could simply reboot from the alternate partition without going through the downgrade process.

What I suggest is to upgrade only one partition, keep the device running for some time(this will depend on you how much is relevant to draw a conclusion) and then do a snapshot to the other partition.

You might consider this once you have both partitions with the same release:

http://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos12.3/topics/reference/configuration-statement/auto-snapshot-edit-system.html

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Thanks for the reply.

So just to be clear: Snapshots during/after upgrades are NOT automatic? You always need to run "request system snapshot slice alternate" to get the partitions back in sync?

The auto-snapshot feature sounds slightly different. If I understand it correctly, that feature is used to automatically repair a corrupt primary root partition whenever the system reboots from an alternate root partition.

Yes, the snapshots are not automatic after upgrade and yes, you got the feature understanding right.

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If this worked for you please flag my post as an "Accepted Solution" so others can benefit. A kudo would be cool if you think I earned it.