1. Platform Preparation and Installation Guide
  2. Software Upgrade
  3. Stand-alone Upgrade

Stand-alone Upgrade

This process incurs system downtime; your Oracle Communications Session Border Controller stops passing traffic for a period of time. Please plan for your standalone upgrade accordingly.

Check /boot for free space

  1. On the OCSBC, check for adequate space in the /boot volume to upload the new boot image and bootloader. Use the show space boot command. 
    OCSBC# show space boot
boot: 24759488/25760512 bytes (99%) remaining

    You may delete files from an SFTP client if you need to free space.

    The command check-space-remaining boot performs the same function as show space boot.

Upload the Stage 3 Boot Loader and System Image

Whenever you upgrade the software image, upload the stage 3 boot loader and the new system image file to the system. The stage 3 boot loader is backward compatible with application software.

The Stage3 boot loader is generally backward compatible with previous releases, but Oracle recommends that the Stage3 boot loader be installed from the same Major.Minor version as the system image. It is not normally necessary to update the boot loader when installing a maintenance or patch release when the Major.Minor release is the same.

System upgrades typically consist of transferring the new system image and stage3 boot loader to the system and setting boot parameters to the new system software. To ensure compatibility, copy the stage 3 boot loader to /boot/bootloader before you update the boot parameters to use the new software image file. The boot loader file must be renamed to /boot/bootloader on the target system with no file extension. When upgrading an HA pair, you must perform the upgrade procedure on each HA node.

Follow the steps below to upload the Stage3 boot loader and system image.

  1. Obtain the stage 3 boot loader image file (*.boot).
  2. Upload the stage 3 boot loader image file (*.boot) as /boot/bootloader to your system using an SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) client.
  3. Upload the new system software image (*.bz) to /boot/.
  4. Validate the bootloader by rebooting the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller after renaming the bootloader. 
[Downloads]$ ls -la
total 148820
drwxr-xr-x  2 bob src     4096 Jun 17 15:16 .
drwxr-xr-x 28 bob src     4096 May 21 14:17 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 bob src 10164527 Jun 17 15:15 nnSCZ720.64.boot
-rw-r--r--  1 bob src 73849839 Jun 17 15:15 nnSCZ720.64.bz
[Downloads]$ sftp admin@172.30.46.20
admin@172.30.46.20's password:
Connected to 172.30.46.20.
sftp> cd /boot
sftp> put nnSCZ720.64.boot
Uploading nnSCZ720.64.boot to /boot/nnSCZ720.64.boot
nnSCZ720.64.boot                              100% 9926KB   9.7MB/s   00:01
sftp> rm /boot/bootloader
sftp> rename nnSCZ720.64.boot /boot/bootloader
sftp> put nnSCZ720.64.bz
Uploading nnSCZ720.64.bz to /boot/nnSCZ720.64.bz
nnSCZ720.64.bz                                100%   70MB  14.1MB/s   00:05
sftp> bye
Received disconnect from 172.30.46.20: 11: Logged out.
[Downloads]$

Note:

Strictly speaking, the Stage3 boot loader is ready for operation after upload and filename change, but validating it before booting the new system software is good practice.

Software Upgrade Procedure

The following procedure describes how to upgrade a Oracle Communications Session Border Controller with a new software image. In this procedure, the image file is located on the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller’s local file system in /boot.

To upgrade a software image on a stand-alone system:

  1. Change the boot configuration parameters to use the new image.

    In the ACLI configure terminal menu, type bootparam and press <Enter> to display the list of boot parameters. Scroll through the boot parameters by pressing Enter. Stop when you reach the file name boot parameter and type the appropriate file name next to the previous file name. Press <Enter> to continue scrolling through the boot parameters.

    The following example uses the filenames /boot/nnSCZ720m5.64.bz and /boot/nnSCZ730.64.bz. 

    OCSBC1# configure terminal
OCSBC1(configure)# bootparam
'.' = clear field;  '-' = go to previous field;  ^D = quit
boot device          : eth0
processor number     : 0
host name            : boothost
file name            : /boot/nnSCZ720m5.64.bz /boot/nnSCZ730.64.bz
  2. Reboot the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller using the reboot command.

    The Oracle Communications Session Border Controller should now be successfully running the new release.