This past week I noticed an update to NetApp ONTAP. We were running version 7.3.1.1 and I wanted to upgrade to 7.3.2. I heard from so many people, "Don't worry Kenny, it's so easy to do an upgrade." Come to find out, it's actually EXTREMELY EASY. The bad part is, there is a 200 page upgrade guide that makes everything more challenging than it really needs to be. Chris Kranz (@ckranz) over at wafl.co.uk has a good guide for ONTAP Upgrades. I wanted to spoon feed his tutorial a bit more for anyone else wanting to do their first NetApp ONTAP upgrade. This will be done the n00b fashion way with Windows :)
So here we go from the beginning:
The ONTAP upgrade is done to ensure that the NetApp SAN has the most recent release of software. This is also a non-disruptive upgrade because in this case we have 2 controllers (or nodes).
To acquire the ONTAP release, login to the NOW site which is located at http://now.netapp.com
Once logged in, navigate to Download Software and find the drop down for ONTAP. Locate your SAN type and click go. Download the .exe file for the version to upgrade. We will be using windows and CIFS to perform the upgrade.
At this time, we downloaded the release called 732_setup_e.exe for the 7.3.2 release for our FAS2020a. Save it to your desktop until we are ready to transfer.
Open a hidden CIFS share to both of your NetApp filers. \\IPaddress\C$\
If you get an error about a share not being available, you have to enable CIFS on your filer.
To do this, open NetApp Systems Manager or FilerView. Within both of these interfaces, go to the protocols section and complete the CIFS Setup Wizard. I set the "security style" to be multiprotocol.
Once CIFS has been setup properly, access the hidden share by going to \\IPaddress\C$
and you should get a screen like this:
Navigate to /etc/software and copy and paste the downloaded exe into this directory
COPY THIS FILE INTO INTO EACH FILER INDIVIDUALLY. In this case you want to put the .exe into both Node1 and Node2 because we will be upgrading them both.
SSH into the first node you want to update
type the command "software list" and you will see what's available
type node1> software install VERSIONyouWANTtoINSTALL.exe . This will unpack the executable and place all the files in appropriate places without any disruption.
after that has completed, type node1> download . This will take the extracted files and start committing them, thus overwriting files in place. Again, this is done without any interruption.
Once this has completed after a few minutes, SSH into the 2nd controller, or node2. Issue the command node2> cf takeover which will start the fail-over process of the first node being taken over by node 2. During this process, node1 is being rebooted and will load it's newly installed software.
After about 5-10 minutes, the node that has been upgraded (Node1 in our case) should be at the point of "waiting for giveback" on the console. type node2> cf giveback and this will give Node 1 control once again.
to upgrade Node 2, follow the same steps
To verify the version, type version
NOTES: Giuliano Moschini, (@GiulianoM) Highly recommends using "software update -r" instead of software install. It checks the package w/MD5, -r is no reboot. Tweet Proof
WARNING: before performing an ONTAP upgrade, always verify that there are no firmware upgrades needed to the drive shelves or anything else. Always read the release notes.