WLC 5508 software upgrade

[Robin Swan]

Good Afternoon,

I got a WLC 5508 with software version 7.0.98 and want to upgrade to 7.6.120.  Although the release notes suggest that I can upgrade directly, would it be better to upgrade to 7.4.121 first?

Thank you in advance,

Jay

[Leo Laohoo]

would it be better to upgrade to 7.4.121 first?

I don't see the benefit.  

The most important thing is to upgrade the FUS.

[Si]

Sorry to hijack this. I am in the same position at the moment. 

Im going from 7.2.110.0 to 7.4.121.0. I understand i need to upgrade the FUS. Id like to upgrade the APs using the  pre download method .
To do this, would i need to upgrade all the WiSMs and Controllers with the FUS before upgrading the controller software and reloading APs.

If i upgrade the FUS, would it be compatible with 7.2.110.0 Due to the environment scheduling downtime is difficult i think i would need two maintenance windows to do this

Thanks
S

[Sandeep Choudhary]

In either way you upgrade FUS or Software on Controllers. It doesn't matter as long as you get it done.  Make sure you reboot the WLC before doing the next. 

Its mandatory to have at least FUS 1.7 when on 7.2 or 7.3. With v7.4 came the FUS 1.9 which replaces 1.7.

Take a downtime window around 45-60 minutes(FUS + Software upgrade).

Hope it helps.

Regards

Dont forget to rate helpful posts

[Si]

Bootloader Version............................... 1.0.16

Firmware Version................................. FPGA 1.6

Looking at the Firmware version and bootloader. It will need upgrading. It will be easier to upgrading the FUS before on all controllers prior to the main upgrade. We have to upgrade 6 WiSM2s and 3*5508 controllers

Thanks for confirmation

S
 

[Leo Laohoo]

That is correct.

[Sandeep Choudhary]

Yes, Agree with Leo.

There is no need to upgarde to 7.4.121.0 and then to 7.6.

Better to go directly.

dont forget to upgarde the FUS.

while upgrading take a downtime window of 45 minutes(FUS + software upgrade)

Regards

[Robin Swan]

Update:

The upgrade process took approximately 45 minutes.  I did the FUS first which took the most time.  The actual software upgrade only took a few minutes.

However, I have a total of 6 WLANs on the controller, 5 of which are WEP (I inherited this mess).  The WPA2 WLAN was the only one that wouldn't "enable."  I kept getting DHCP and Interface errrors.  After about 10 minutes of importing the backup I had made before the upgrade and a few other things, I ended up submitting it to TAC.  When the TAC Engineer called me back approximately 50 mins later, the WLAN was enabled.  The engineer explained that sometimes it takes more than a few minutes for the WLC to finish configuring itself.  This was done late night on a Friday night.  Then the following Monday, the interface had lost it's IP Address so it wasn't able to contact the DHCP server for clients to get addresses.  I ended up calling TAC to resolve this issue again.  It turns out, the Firefox browser doesn't work to well with the Cisco WLC GUI.  It took us awhile to figure that out and we ended up using IE to configure the IP Address back onto the Interface for the WPA2 WLAN. 

Bottom line, I was told to use Chrome if I didn't want to use IE to do changes on the WLC for the Browser.

Hope this helps anyone who might end up running into similar issues.