pix upgrade question

[mjsully]

I have a PIX 515-E, running 7.1 code, that I need to upgrade to 7.2 code. The flash is not big enough to hold both images. So I have a few questions about the upgrade.

1) When I copy the new image over, does it automatically overwrite the existing one, or do I have to delete it first?

2) If it overwrites it, do I have to reboot at this point, or can I wait? In otherwords, will it continue to run although technically the original image has been deleted and the new one has not been initialized?

3) Do I have to specify the boot path on a PIX the same way I do on an ASA, or will it automatically boot to it when the firewall reboots?

[husycisco]

Hello Matt,

1)If you dont copy the new image file with the same name, it wont overwrite the existing one. Some admins prefer keeping copies in flash with different names like image7.1 image7.2, and some prefer keeping "image" only. Issue "show bootvar" command and see the name of current image. If you see "BOOT variable = flash:/image" then you can issue" copy tftp://tftpserverip/newimagename.bin flash:/image" to overwrite the existing image.

2)Since the image is already extracted to RAM during bootup and currently running over RAM, any change(overwrite) or deletion to/of image file wont affect the firewall's operational status. You can wait as long as you want and reboot to activate new image anytime you want.

3)If a boot image is not set by "boot system" command, firewall will check the flash and boot the first applicable image it finds. If you overwrite the existing one as I suggested in Q1 , no extra config to boot the new image will be necessary.

Regards