Upgrading IOS-XR Using Python: Cisco AUT

If you have ever upgraded an IOS-XR you definitely are aware that it is a long process which includes so much control steps. Cisco has written a python tool, known as Cisco Automatic  Upgrade Tool, that upgrades an IOS-XR device with pre and post checks. Cisco CPOC video explains nearly everything about this tool which you should watch before start reading this post. Probably the video recorded for an older version of AUT, you will realize that there are little differences between the post and the video. 

Installing The Tool & Prerequisites

The tool works on Linux and Mac cause it uses pexpect module of python so it is not possible to use it on Windows Operating System. Find yourself a Linux/MAC system that is allowed to reach your routers. 

Python Version Check

The script itself does not give any warning about python version if it is old, so be sure that your python version is up to date. I successfully used the tool with python version 2.7.6. I also tried  with version 2.6  and it did not work.

You can check your python version on a Centos system using the below command: 

python -v

Pexpect Module Install

Pexpect python module must be installed on the operating system. Here is the way to install pexpect module on a Centos system:

wget http://pexpect.sourceforge.net/pexpect-2.3.tar.gz
tar xzf pexpect-2.3.tar.gz
cd pexpect-2.3
python ./setup.py install

Cisco AUT Install

You should first download the tool itself. Go the the sourceforge website 

http://sourceforge.net/p/acceleratedupgrade/code/ci/master/tree/ and get the gitclone code. Then: 

python install -d /destination_folder

Cisco AUT

If you have installed all the necessary tools and Cisco AUT , you might start using it by checking which options the script gives, by executing the command below: 

python accelerated_upgrade -h

Below is sample command you might use to upgrade a IOS-XR device.

python accelerated_upgrade --url ssh://admin:yourpassword@11.11.11.11:22  -f packagelist.txt -r tftp://10.0.0.1/ -c  extracommands.txt

As the name reveals itself, packagelist.txt includes the packages we wanted to install on the device. A sample txt file must be like below (based on your needs): 

asr9k-k9sec-px.pie-5.1.3
asr9k-fpd-px.pie-5.1.3
asr9k-mcast-px.pie-5.1.3
asr9k-mpls-px.pie-5.1.3
asr9k-mini-px.pie-5.1.3
asr9k-mgbl-px.pie-5.1.3
asr9k-doc-px.pie-5.1.3

If you wanted to upgrade more than 1 device, you can also create a device.txt file (name it as you want) and the change the command like below: 

python accelerated_upgrade --urls devices.txt -f packagelist.txt -r tftp://10.0.0.1/ -c extracommands.txt

As you already noticed, in the command we gave tftp address where router is going to download the packages from. You may also give ftp link also (including username and password)

Extracommands file, as the name reveals itself again, includes the commands that you might want to execute before upgrade, so that you can compare after the upgrade. Here is a sample file output:

show redundancy summary
show platform
admin show ds
admin show hw-module fpd location all

Pre-checks 

Pre-upgrade steps of the tool are:

• Node Status Check 
• Ping Check
• Disck Space Check
• Active Package Check 
• Inactive Package Check 
• Commited Package Check
• Redundancy Nde Check 
• Configuration Backup 
• Backup CLI Snapshots 
• Turboboot Check 

You can find detailed information about the pre-check steps in the Cisco CPOC video.

Sample Upgrade 

I upgraded an ASR9010 IOS-XRdevice from 4.2.3 to 5.1.3  using AUT with parameters below:

python accelerated_upgrade --url ssh://admin:yourpassword@11.11.11.11:22  -f packagelist.txt -r tftp://10.0.0.1/ -c extracommands.txt

Unfortunately telnet did not work for me, may be it was related with my router config, but ssh worked. Here are the outputs: 

As you might see in the output, post-check warned me about failed startup config (which is due to changed syntax of MoFRR), and difference between total ospf neighbor count of pre and post upgrade situations. 

FPD Upgrade

In my attempt, script did not do an automatic fpd upgrade, so you need to check and do a fpd upgrade manually. 

Log Files 

Script creates to folders, named "aulogs" and "au_out" in the executed folder, to store logs of the operation. You can see the structure in the screenshot below. 

In aulogs folder, the scripts session to the router is stored. In au_out folder the extracommands (if used) and predetermined commands output, which are taken before upgrade procedure, are stored.