Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to be a Wi-Fi guy. However, I sometimes still have to touch routers and switches. I have some help for you if you need to upgrade some old Nexus switches. The Nexus 3048s are great DC caliber gig switches with proper front-to-back airflow. Used ones are really cheap and I think they make great management switches, which is what I’m using them for. If you have a Cisco Nexus 3048 with an older release of NX-OS on it, you need to go through several upgrades to get it to NX-OS v7. Here’s a walkthrough on the procedures. If you find you already on v6, for example, you can skip the 5.x step.

Upon initial boot, you will need to abort Power-On Auto Provisioning. You will then be prompted for the admin password. Skip the basic configuration dialog. After a few moments, you will be able to login with the admin credentials you set during boot.

I suggest downloading all the required code and placing it on a USB. I’ve found this to be the fastest and least painful method.

Copy the needed software updates from USB to bootflash:

copy usb1:///n3000-uk9-kickstart.5.0.3.U5.1j.bin bootflash:
copy usb1:///n3000-uk9.5.0.3.U5.1j.bin bootflash:

copy usb1:///n3000-uk9.6.0.2.U6.2a.bin bootflash:
copy usb1:///n3000-uk9-kickstart.6.0.2.U6.2a.bin bootflash:

copy usb1:///n3000-uk9.6.0.2.U6.10.bin bootflash:
copy usb1:///n3000-uk9-kickstart.6.0.2.U6.10.bin bootflash:

# Probably not be enough space, this will probably need to be done
# later, but you can try it...
copy usb1:///nxos.7.0.3.I4.8.bin bootflash:

Upgrade to NXOS 5.0(3)U5 (req’d to upgrade to NXOS 6)

install all system bootflash:///n3000-uk9.5.0.3.U5.1j.bin kickstart bootflash:///n3000-uk9-kickstart.5.0.3.U5.1j.bin

The upgrade takes several minutes while it verifies and extracts the update. It will then come up with a warning that ISSU isn’t available and ask if you want to continue with the disruptive upgrade. Say yes and eventually the switch will reboot and return to the login prompt.

Cleanup to make sure there’s enough room for upgrades to run.

del n3000-uk9.5* no-prompt

Now we get to run through the upgrade procedure several times.

Upgrade to NXOS 6.0(2)U6(2a)

install all system bootflash:///n3000-uk9.6.0.2.U6.2a.bin kickstart bootflash:///n3000-uk9-kickstart.6.0.2.U6.2a.bin

Upgrade to NXOS 6.0(2)U6(10)

install all system bootflash:///n3000-uk9.6.0.2.U6.10.bin kickstart bootflash:///n3000-uk9-kickstart.6.0.2.U6.10.bin

Install NXOS 7.0

#If you were able to copy the NX-OS v7 image earlier, skip this copy.
copy usb1:///nxos.7.0.3.I4.8.bin bootflash:

install all nxos bootflash:nxos.7.0.3.I4.8.bin

Clean up old versions

del n3000* no-prompt

FIN