Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v6.4.0 (53-1001763-01, June 2010)

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 189

53-1001763-01

Chapter

Installing and Maintaining Firmware

In this chapter

•Firmware download process overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

•Preparing for a firmware download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

•Firmware download on switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

•Firmware download on an enterprise-class platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

•Firmware download from a USB device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

•FIPS Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

•Test and restore firmware on switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

•Test and restore firmware on enterprise-class platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

•Validating a firmware download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Firmware download process overview

Fabric OS v6.4.0 provides nondisruptive firmware installation.

This chapter refers to the following specific types of blades inserted into either the Brocade 48000

director or Brocade DCX and DCX-4S Backbone platforms:

• FC blades or port blades contain only Fibre Channel ports: Brocade FC4-16/32/48, FC10-6,

and FC8-16/32/48/64.

• AP blades contain extra processors and specialized ports: Brocade FR4-18i and FC4-16IP,

FA4-18, FCOE10-24, and FX8-24.

• CP blades have a control processor (CP) used to control the entire switch; they can be inserted

only into slots 5 and 6 on the Brocade 48000, slots 6 and 7 on the Brocade DCX, and slots 4

and 5 on the Brocade DCX-4S.

• CORE8 and CR4S-8 core blades provide ICL functionality between two Brocade DCX

Backbones. CORE8 blades can be inserted only into slots 5 and 8 on the Brocade DCX. CR4S-8

blades can be inserted only into slots 3 and 6 on the Brocade DCX-4S.

NOTE

For more information on troubleshooting a firmware download, refer to the Fabric OS

Troubleshooting and Diagnostics Guide.

You can download Fabric OS to a director, which is a chassis; and to a nonchassis-based system,

also referred to as a switch. The difference in the download process is that directors have two CPs

and nonchassis-based systems have one CP. Use the firmwareDownload command to download

the firmware from either an FTP or SSH server by using either the FTP or SCP protocol to the switch.