Cisco APIC Installation and ACI Upgrade and Downgrade Guide

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Cisco APIC Installation and ACI Upgrade and Downgrade Guide

Pre-upgrade validation tools

Updated: July 12, 2026

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Describes three different tools available to perform pre-upgrade validation for Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure(ACI).

Pre-upgrade validation tools are utilities that

  • check configurations and conditions that may cause upgrade or downgrade failures in Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure(ACI)

  • provide validation before maintenance windows to ensure sufficient time to address issues, and

  • offer multiple implementation options including embedded validators, apps, and standalone scripts.

Available validation tools

There are three different tools to perform pre-upgrade validation for Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure(ACI):

  • Pre-Upgrade Validator (APIC): A validator embedded in the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure(ACI) Upgrade Configuration. This is automatically performed when configuring an update group for the Cisco APIC or switches.

  • Pre-Upgrade Validator (App Center app): A validator that can be installed on the Cisco APICs as an app that can be downloaded through dcappcenter.cisco.com. Due to the deprecation of App Center (dcappcenter.cisco.com) in ACI Release 6.1.2, this option is considered obsolete. Use other options for all ACI versions.

  • Script: For any feature not currently implemented in the Pre-Upgrade Validator, you can run a standalone script directly on the Cisco APIC to validate any existing issues prior to upgrading. The script supports all versions of software. To ensure you have ample time to address any issues, please run the validation at least 2 weeks before your maintenance window.

    You can obtain the Pre-Upgrade Validation Script via https://github.com/datacenter/ACI-Pre-Upgrade-Validation-Script and run it on the APIC CLI.

    Starting from APIC version 6.2(1), the external validation rules, which are the equivalent set of rules from the script, are executed through the built-in Upgrade GUI workflow on the APIC. There are two options for the APIC to get the external validation rules for this.

    Option 1 — Cisco Intersight (Recommended)

    If your Cisco APIC is claimed by Cisco Intersight and has IP reachability, the latest external validation rules are automatically downloaded and applied during the upgrade workflow. No manual download is required. This method ensures you always have the most up-to-date validation rules.

    See Cisco APIC and Intersight Device Connector for details about configuring connectivity to Cisco Intersight.

    Option 2 — Manual Download (For environments without Intersight connectivity)

    If your Cisco APIC does not have connectivity to Cisco Intersight, you must manually download the external validation rules (aci-preupgrade-validation-script-<version>.tar.gz) from the Cisco Software Download site and upload it to the Cisco APIC as an image by following the instructions in the Download APIC, APIC CIMC, switch and additional rules for pre-upgrade validation on APICs section.

    For the list of all validations supported by the script, see: https://datacenter.github.io/ACI-Pre-Upgrade-Validation-Script/validations/