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Bryan Garland
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Useful information when dealing with XR Service Packs (SPs)

 

 

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to help quickly add some additional information around Service Packs.  This will add to the information currently found in the following page.

Service Pack Overview for Routers on IOS XR

SMUs on top of Service Packs

Current Exceptions with SMUs on SPs

Now we all understand the need for SMUs on SPs.  These can be supported as long as all the parties involved understand a few of the caveats here. 

  1. No OS/MBI SMUs can run on an SP.  

    • This is because the SP is also an MBI package and only 1 can be loaded on the system.
  2. SPs do not contain fixes for the crypto packages.  This is due to export laws.  
  3. There is a chance that a SMU was committed to the lineup (in UTpass, DTpass) but not posted yet when the SP lineup is pulled.  This would result in that SMUs fix not being included in the SP.  But because of the timing of it having been committed to the SMU lineup means that XR will think the fix is in the SP so it won't be activated.  
    • With the rate that SMUs are committed there are always a few SMUs that would fall into this window.  

How do determine if a SMU is part of the OS/MBI?

In the .txt file that is posted with every SMU there is a section called "Package(s)".  This lists the packages that this SMU touches.  So for an example, let's look at the text file with the SMU for CSCuz33376.  Below is a snippet of that text tile.  In the packages you can see the package "asr9k-os-mbi-px-5.3.3.CSCuz33376 in the list.  This means that this SMU does touch the OS/MBI components and would be an example of one that could not be loaded on top of an SP.  

 

# Last Modified Date: 04/30/16-07:49:35
################################################################################
#
# Readme for SMU asr9k-px-5.3.3.CSCuz33376.pie
#
# Copyright (c) 2016 by Cisco Systems, Inc.
# All rights reserved.
#
################################################################################

Date Generated:          Sat Apr 30 03:44:05 PDT 2016

Owner:                   sumag

Name:                    asr9k-px-5.3.3.CSCuz33376.pie

Package(s):              
    asr9k-fwding-5.3.3.CSCuz33376
    asr9k-os-mbi-px-5.3.3.CSCuz33376

Compressed File Size:    105281197 bytes

 

Ways to improve on the current exceptions

This is more to cover item 3 from above.

We can't currently eliminate all SMUs that are in mid flight and get caught in this gap when the SP is pulled.  But we can make it easier to understand which ones fall into this gap.  We are working to have it mentioned in the SMU Readme as well as in the SP Readme.  This will show that a SMU can't be run on a particular SP.  That way AS/TS/Customer will be able to see ahead of time which ones fall into this gap and know to wait for the next SP.  

 

Service Pack Frequently Asked Questions

What does SMU CSCul58246 really do?

  • CSCul58246 makes packaging and install understand the SP. Without this SP is treated as a normal pie which will cause issues while installing other optional pies.

When using code that is not SP aware can we install SMU CSCul58246 and the SP in the same install activate?

  • Unfortunately NO.  SMU CSCul58246 needs to be installed first before any SP or SP+SMUs.  This will be two reloads, 1 for SMU and 1 for SP.  But this correctly sets up the package dependencies to avoid issues later.

While activating an optional pie on top of Service Pack the install operation asks for a reload.

  • This behavior is due to the absence of CSCul58246 SMU on the router. Please install CSCul58246 SMU before installing SP to overcome this issue.

SP installation fails with API incompatibility errors (Error: Cannot proceed with the activation because of the following API)

  • This behavior is due to the absence of CSCul58246 SMU on the router. Please install CSCul58246 SMU before installing SP to overcome this issue.

Behavior of SP/optional pie installation is inconsistent from SP to SP and release to release

  • If you do not have the CSCul58246 SMU installed Install treats the SP as a normal pie and corrupts the loadpath. The inconsistent behavior depends on the way Install orders the packages for loadpath updation. This will differ from SP to SP.

'install deactivate superceded' throws error

  • Install the SMU CSCuo16209 to fix the issue.

SP is seen as active as well as inactive.

  • When the SP contains the fix for an optional package and the corresponding base optional pie is not installed on the router the SP will be seen as active and inactive as well.
    All the other fixes related to the other optional pies will be installed.

Is it necessary to install CSCul58246 SMU even though it is one of the constituent DDTS of the SP?

  • Yes, for releases older than 5.1.1 it is mandatory to install the SMU before installing an SP for the first time.

 

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