2610 IOS execution - from NVRAM, or what?

CriscoSystems · ‎08-12-2008

Hi folks - I think I posted awhile ago about having trouble loading an IOS image into my 2610's Flash.

Now I've come across the email from the friend who sold me the file, and he flat-out said, "it is too large to load in the flash, so you have to boot this image from tftp."

I knew the 2500-series routers store AND execute IOS from Flash, I guess the 2600's don't do this?

I've never TFTP'd an IOS image into anything other than Flash (or my Mac tftp server...)

garytayl · ‎08-12-2008

I'm not quite following you because 2600 can store and execute IOS from Flash. However, there is a minimum requirement for both DRAM and Flash. Mostlikely you are getting that statement about file being too large.

What is the file name or version and feature set you are trying to load? Do you know how much flash and DRAM do you have?

Richard Burts · ‎08-12-2008

Gary

I think that the post from Seth is fairly clear (even though Seth is not clear on some operational aspects) that the image that he wants to run requires more flash than is available on the router and that the solution is to boot from TFTP.

Seth

While we normally think of Cisco routers storing the IOS image file in flash and reading it from flash at boot time, there are some options that operate differently. One of those options is to boot from a TFTP server. To do this you would configure boot system tftp instead of the usual boot system flash. Here is how it looks in on line help:

test(config)#boot system ?

WORD TFTP filename or URL

flash Boot from flash memory

ftp Boot from a server via ftp

mop Boot from a Decnet MOP server

rcp Boot from a server via rcp

rom Boot from rom

tftp Boot from a tftp server

test(config)#boot system tftp ?

WORD System image filename

If you do this at boot time the router sends a TFTP read request to the server for the image file and boots the resulting image. I have sometimes done this if I want to try out a new image without going through the process of loading it to the router.

HTH

Rick

HTH

Rick