Upgrade or downgrade leaf and spine switches through APIC running prior to release 4.x

In the Navigation pane, right-click Fabric Node Firmware and click Firmware Upgrade Wizard.

In the Create Firmware Group dialog box, perform the following actions:

1. Under Nodes, click the Select All tab to choose all the nodes in the fabric in the Selected column. Click Next.

2. Under Firmware Group, in the Group Name field, enter a group name.

3. In the Ignore Compatibility Check field, leave the setting in the default off (unchecked) setting, unless you are specifically told to disable the compatibility check feature.

   Note

   If you choose to disable the compatibility check feature by entering a check mark in the box next to the Ignore Compatibility Check field, you run the risk of making an unsupported upgrade or downgrade to your system, which could result in your system going to an unavailable state.

4. In the Target Firmware Version field, from the drop-down list, choose the desired image version to which you want to upgrade or downgrade the switches. Click Next.

5. Under Maintenance Group, create two maintenance groups for all the switches. For example, create one group with the even-numbered devices and the other group with the odd-numbered devices.

   Note

   While a single maintenance group will upgrade all leaf and spine switches at the same time, Cisco recommends that you divide your leaf and spine switches into multiple (two or more) maintenance groups to prevent the entire fabric from going down during a software upgrade or downgrade. Dividing up the leaf and spine switches into two or more maintenance groups, composed of roughly equivalent groups of leaf and spine switches, allows continued operation of the fabric during software upgrades by upgrading half (or less) of the fabric nodes at one time.

6. Click the Create Maintenance Group tab.

7. In the Create Maintenance Group dialog box, in the Group Name field, enter a name for the group.

8. From the Maintenance Policy drop-down list, select the policy that you want to use for the group.

9. Click Submit.

Add switches to the maintenance group.

1. In the Navigation pane, navigate to Admin > Firmware Management > Maintenance Groups.

2. In the Work pane, double-click the maintenance group that you created.

3. In the Properties area, click the Operational tab.

4. Click the Update icon.

5. In the Add Node to Maintenance Group dialog box, from the Node drop-down list, choose the switches that you want to add to the group.

6. Click Update.

Start the upgrade.

1. In the Navigation pane, navigate to Admin > Firmware Management > Images.

2. In the Work pane, right-click the firmware image and choose Set as Switch Default.

   Note

   When you set the firmware as the switch default, the switches in the maintenance group will reboot when they upgrade or downgrade, connectivity drops, and the controllers in the cluster will not communicate for some time with the switches in the group. After the switches rejoin the fabric after rebooting, you will see all the switches from the controller node.

In the Navigation pane, click Fabric Node Firmware.