Step 1

Attach the USB drive to the Linux VM and confirm the device is connected.

root@UBUNTU:~$ lsblk 	  	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
loop0     7:0    0      4K  1 loop 	 	 	 
loop1     7:1    0   68.9M  1 loop	 
...            
sda      8:0    0     25G  0 disk      
├─sda1   8:1    0      1G  0 part
└─sda2   8:2    0   23.9G  0 part	 	 	 	 	 
sdb      8:16   1   28.9G  0 disk

In this example, the drive is sdb.

 Note

Exercise extra caution with the detected USB partition to prevent accidentally formatting non-USB data disks.

Step 2

Partition the USB drive and verify the partitions.

1. Partition the USB drive.

   Example:

   root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
   root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary fat32 1MiB 301MiB
   root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary fat32 301MiB 100%
   

2. Verify the partitions.

   Example:

   root@UBUNTU:~$ lsblk 	 
    	 	 	 	 	 
   NAME    MAJ:MIN RM    SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS 	 	 	 
   loop0     7:0    0      4K  1 loop
   loop1     7:1    0   68.9M  1 loop
   …
   sda      8:0    0     25G  0 disk
   ├─sda1   8:1    0      1G  0 part
   └─sda2   8:2    0   23.9G  0 part
   sdb      8:16   1   28.9G  0 disk
   ├─sdb1   8:1    0    300M  0 part
   └─sdb2   8:2    0   28.6G  0 part
   
   

   In this example, the sdb drive has partitions sdb1 and sdb2.

Step 3

Format partition entries with the FAT filesystem and assign labels.

root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo mkfs.vfat -n "BOOT" /dev/sdb1
root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo mkfs.vfat -n "MAIN" /dev/sdb2 

Step 4

Download the EFI boot and recovery artifacts to the same folder on your Linux system. In this example, the Cisco HF6100-32D switch files are downloaded to ~/usb_recovery.

root@UBUNTU:~/usb_recovery$ ls -l

-rwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf   268435456 Apr 30 18:29 efi_boot.img
-rwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf 17179869184 Sep 16 20:34 efi_recovery.img
-rwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf  1906331887 Sep 16 21:15 SONiC.202405c.2.1.1-0.HF6100-32D.bin
-rwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf         279 Sep 24 14:29 readme.txt

Step 5

Copy the EFI boot and the EFI recovery images to the USB drive.

root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo dd if=usb_recovery/efi_boot.img of=/dev/sdb1 bs=4M
root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo dd if=usb_recovery/efi_recovery.img of=/dev/sdb2 bs=4M

Step 6

Create a temporary directory, mount the second partition, and copy the Cisco 6100 series switch image.

1. Create a temporary directory to mount the second partition.

   Example:

   root@UBUNTU:~$ mkdir recovery_temp
   root@UBUNTU:~$ ls recovery_temp
   

2. Mount the second partition to the temporary directory

   Example:

   root@UBUNTU:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb2 recovery_temp
   root@UBUNTU:~$ cd recovery_temp
   root@UBUNTU:~/recovery_temp$ ls -l
   
   drwxr-xr-x 4 root root  4096 May 14 04:43 grub
   drwx------ 2 root root 16384 May 14 04:43 lost+found
   drwxr-xr-x 7 root root  4096 May 14 04:50 onie
   drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Sep 16 18:57 sonic
   

3. Copy the Cisco 6100 series switch image to the ~/recovery_temp/sonic path as sonic_recovery.bin.

   The image must be named sonic_recovery.bin or it will not be automatically detected.

   Example:

   root@UBUNTU:~/recovery_temp$ cd sonic
   root@UBUNTU:~/recovery_temp/sonic$ sudo cp ~/SONiC.202405c.2.1.1-0.HF6100-32D.bin ./sonic_recovery.bin
   root@UBUNTU:~/recovery_temp/sonic$ ls
   
   sonic_recovery.bin
   

   In this example, the Cisco 6100 series switch image is SONiC.202405c.2.1.1-0.HF6100-32D.bin.

Step 7

Exit the mounted temporary directory and sync write operations.

root@UBUNTU:~/recovery_temp/sonic$ cd ../..
root@UBUNTU:~/$ sync

Step 8

Unmount the sdb2 partition and eject the USB drive.

root@UBUNTU:~/$ sudo umount /dev/sdb2
root@UBUNTU:~/$ sudo eject /dev/sdb

Step 1

Insert the prepared USB drive into the switch.

Step 2

Power cycle the switch to initiate the recovery process.

1. During the recovery, confirm that the BIOS version matches or exceeds the minimum required version for the switch model listed in Supported hardware and software versions.

   
   
   

2. During the recovery process, the system locates and installs the Cisco 6100 series switch image.

   
   
   

3. The start screen appears, confirming successful installation and recovery.

   
   
   

4. After the switch has successfully booted from the USB drive, log into the switch with the default credentials:

   • Username: ttg-admin
   • Password: hfabric2025

Step 3

Remove the USB drive from the switch after recovery.

 Note

If you forget to remove the USB drive, the switch will continue to boot from the USB drive.