too small flash to upload a new software

Posted on October 5, 2011

In my previous post I wrote about upgrade of Huawei S5300 switch.

The question is, what to do if flash memory is too small
small to fit more than one software. As it
was mentioned last time, you can format flash from bootrom menu and download a new
software using FTP, from bootrom menu. In this post I will show you how to deal with this
problem more smoothly. You can come up againstaga this problem in Huawei S3328TP-SI
S3328TP
switch, where flash capacity is 15MB. Lets take it as an example.

display version
Huawei Versatile Routing Platform Software
VRP (R) Software, Version 5.30 (S3328 V100R003C00SPC301)
Copyright (C) 2008-2009
2009 Huawei Technologies
Tec Co., Ltd.
Quidway S3328TP-SI
SI uptime is 0 day, 0 hour, 4 minutes

As you can see flash capacity is 15MB:

<S3328>dir
Directory of flash:/

0 -rw- 61 Jan 01 2008 00:22:13 private-data.txt

private data.txt
1 -rw- 660 Jan 01 2008 00:16:23 v
vrpcfg.zip
2 -rw- 396 Jan 01 2008 00:12:06 hostkey
3 -rw- 7068108 Jan 01 2008 00:20:12 s3328 v100r003c00spc301.cc
s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc
4 -rw- 540 Jan 01 2008 00:12:11 serverkey
5 -rw- 343712 Jan 01 2008 00:04:49 bootrom330.bin
6 -rw- 60 Jan 01 2008 00:00:53 $_patchstate_a
7 -rw- 4 Jan 01 2008 00:01:37 notilogindex.txt

14632 KB total (6268 KB free)

Now we want to upgrade the switch to S3328-V100R005C00SPC100

S3328 V100R005C00SPC100 software version.
Evidently the flash is too small to fit this software. So we are trying to delete the old software:

<S3328>delete /unreserved /s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc

/s3328
Error: Invalid operation, this is system startup file.

As we expected this is not possible to delete system startup file:

<S3328>display startup
[Unit 0]:
MainBoard:
Configed startup system software: flash:/s3328
flash:/s3328-
v100r003c00spc301.cc
Startup system software: flash:/s3328
flash:/s3328-
v100r003c00spc301.cc
Next startup system software: flash:/s3328
flash:/s3328-
v100r003c00spc301.cc
Startup saved-configuration
configuration file: flash:/vrpcfg.zip
Next startup saved-configuration
configuration file: flash:/vrpcfg.zip
Startup license file: NULL
Next startup license file: NULL
 Startup patch package: NULL
Next startup patch package: NULL

How can we manage with it? Go to hidden mode of S3300 and type the following command:

[S3328]_hide
Password:
Now you enter a hidden command view for developer's testing, some commands
may
affect operation by wrong use, please carefully use it with engineer's
direction.
[S3328-hidecmd]undo startup system-software

This command causes that system software file is not set as startup file, what then makes it
possible to delete it from flash:

<S3328>display startup
[Unit 0]:
MainBoard:
Configed startup system software: NULL
Startup system software:
Next startup system software: NULL
Startup saved-configuration file: flash:/vrpcfg.zip
Next startup saved-configuration file: flash:/vrpcfg.zip
Startup license file: NULL
Next startup license file: NULL
Startup patch package: NULL
Next startup patch package: NULL

<S3328>delete /unreserved s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc

The contents cannot be recycled!!! Delete flash:/s3328-
v100r003c00spc301.cc?[Y/N]:y
%Deleting file flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc...
Jan 1 2008 00:28:14 Quidway %%01VFS/4/DEL_UNRSV(l): When deciding whether
to permanently delete file flash:/s3328-v100r003c00spc301.cc, the user
chose Y.
Deleting file permanently from flash will take a long time if
needed...............................................Done!

Then follow upgrade procedure, described in my previous post to download the new software
and upgrade the switch.