Upgrading a SRX Chassis Cluster

April 29, 2015 Keeran Marquis 4 Comments

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In my previous post, I had successfully failed over the redundancy groups on the cluster using Manual Failover and Interface Failure methods. This post will look into the methods that can be used, when upgrading a SRX Chassis Cluster.

Testing Information

i)I had the scp latest recommended version of Junos (12.1X44-D45.2) onto both Node0 and Node1. The package is located under the /var/tmp file. You can get this folder via cli. From Operation Mode start shell then cd /var/tmp
ii) I will have rolling pings from trust <--> untrust zones in separate terminal windows, so I can see when the outage starts and will be timing the length
iii) All command will run from Node0, unless stated otherwise

You have two methods of updating a SRX Cluster:

Method A (Individual Node upgrades)

Disclaimer

Using this method of chassis cluster upgrade, as a SERVICE DISRUPTION of 3-5 minutes minimum. You will need to ensure that you have considered the business impact of this method of upgrade.

This method can also be used for downgrading Junos, as well as upgrading and has no Junos version limitation. With this method you will be simply upgrading both individual nodes at the same time. As I have already uploaded the Junos image onto both nodes. I will need to run the command on BOTH Node0 and Node1 from Operational Mode

{primary:node0}
[email protected]_SRX220_Top> request system software add /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.1X44-D45.2-domestic.tgz

{secondary:node1}
[email protected]_SRX220_Top> request system software add /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.1X44-D45.2-domestic.tgz

Once they have been added, you will need to reboot both Nodes simultaneously. You can use request system reboot node all from Node0

After the reboot, you will need to update the backup image of Junos on both Nodes, to have a consistent primary and backup image.

Method B (In Service Software Upgrades)

Before I begin, with in-service updates, Juniper have two types of in-service upgrade. For the High-End Data Centre SRX models SRX1400, SRX3400, SRX5600 and SRX5800 will use In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) and the Small/Medium Branch SRX models SRX100, SRX110, SRX220, SRX240 and SRX650 will use In-Band Cluster Upgrade (ICU). Although the commands are near enough the same; the pre-upgrade requirement, service impacts and the minimum Junos firmware version that supporting in-service upgrades are different.

As I’m using 2x SRX220H2 model firewalls, I will be upgrading via ICU. When I get chance to upgrade a High-End SRX model, I will update the post with my findings :p

Even before you consider using the ISSU/ICU method, I am telling you (no recommendation here!!) to check the Juniper page Limitation on ISSU and ICU. The page will confirm what version of Junos is supported by ISSU/ICU and (more importantly) services that are not supported by ISSU/ICU. In essence, you will need to change if/what services you are running on your SRX cluster to see if they are supported. If they are not supported then you are told DO NOT perform an upgrade with this method.

With that out of the way and if you have checked that your cluster is fully supported (firmware and service) by ISSU/ICU you can proceed with the pre-checks 😀

Pre-Upgrade Checks ICU

Junos VersionNo-sync optionDowngrade Method?Disk Space

You will need to be running Junos version 11.2R2 minimum. This can be checked by running show version on both Nodes.

ICU is available with the no-sync options only. The no-sync option disables the flow state from syncing with the second node when it boots with the new Junos image.

You CAN NOT use ICU to downgrade Junos to version lower than 11.2R2

You will need to check the disk space available in the /var/tmp file on the SRX. From Operational Mode start shell then enter the command df -h and you will get disk spaces available.

Having confirmed all the pre-checks are good, we can proceed with the upgrade. It is important to note that during an ICU, there WILL BE A SERVICE DISRUPTION! will be approximately 30 seconds with no-sync option. During this 30 seconds traffic will be dropped and flow session will be lost. You will need to keep this in mind, if you are doing this upgrade in-hours or you need to have a good record on your flow session for any reason.

To start the upgrade, we need to run request system software in-service-upgrade /path/to/package no-sync

{primary:node0}
[email protected]_SRX220_Top> request system software in-service-upgrade /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.1X44-D45.2-domestic.tgz no-sync

ICU Console observations

RebootingUpgrade OrderNode0 to Node1 failover processEnd Host View Point

It is important to note that during the ICU process, you won’t need do any manual reboots, all the reboots are automated within the process

WARNING: in-service-upgrade shall reboot both the nodes
         in your cluster. Please ignore any subsequent 
         reboot request message

Once the process has started Node1 is upgraded first:

Node1 is upgraded first
ISSU: start downloading software package on secondary node
Pushing bundle to node1
{.......}
JUNOS 12.1X44-D45.2 will become active at next reboot
WARNING: A reboot is required to load this software correctly
WARNING:     Use the 'request system reboot' command
WARNING:         when software installation is complete
Saving state for rollback ...
ISSU: failover all redundancy-groups 1...n to primary node
Successfully reset all redundancy-groups priority back to configured priority.
Successfully reset all redundancy-groups priority back to configured priority.
Initiated manual failover for all redundancy-groups to node0
Redundancy-groups-0 will not failover and the primaryship remains unchanged.
ISSU: rebooting Secondary Node
Shutdown NOW!
[pid 13353]
ISSU: Waiting for secondary node node1 to reboot.
ISSU: node 1 went down
ISSU: Waiting for node 1 to come up

It takes few minutes for node0 to reboot after node1 comes back online if you have console connection on both SRXs, you will need to be patient before aborting the upgrade. If you have rolling ping going for each nodes fxp interface you will when the node0 is about to reboot as node1 pings will return. Once node1 is up and booted, Node0 will start to reboot.

ISSU: node 1 came up
ISSU: secondary node node1 booted up.
Shutdown NOW!

From hitting enter to having both firewalls upgraded it had taken 22:45min. Although the documentation said were will be an outage of 30 seconds the rolling ping between trust <--> untrust shows that there was no packet-loss and only 6 packets out of 1600 transmitted weren’t received. (Saying that, for my testing I was unable to get live flow session information.)

root> ping 172.16.0.2 routing-instance trust 
--- 172.16.0.2 ping statistics ---
1600 packets transmitted, 1594 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.720/2.640/13.673/0.652 ms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
root> ping 192.168.0.2 routing-instance untrust
--- 192.168.0.2 ping statistics ---
1600 packets transmitted, 1594 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.838/2.535/13.669/0.681 ms

To verify that the upgrade has been successful, we can run the commands show version

{secondary:node0}
[email protected]_SRX220_Top> show version 
node0:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hostname: lab_SRX220_Top
Model: srx220h2
JUNOS Software Release [12.1X44-D45.2]

node1:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hostname: lab_SRX220_Top
Model: srx220h2
JUNOS Software Release [12.1X44-D45.2]

And show chassis cluster status, to see that chassis status is as expected

[email protected]_SRX220_Top> show chassis cluster status 
Cluster ID: 1 
Node                  Priority          Status    Preempt  Manual failover

Redundancy group: 0 , Failover count: 0
    node0                   100         secondary      no       no  
    node1                   1           primary        no       no  

Redundancy group: 1 , Failover count: 1
    node0                   100         primary        yes      no  
    node1                   1           secondary      yes      no

We can see that we are running the upgraded version of Junos. As expected Redundancy Group 0 is primary on Node1 and Redundancy Group 1 is primary on Node0. As discussed in my previous post, with preempt enabled Redundancy Group 1 will automatically failover to Node0, once it is available. We will have to do a manual failover of redundancy group 0 back to Node0 from Node1 and we will need to upgrade the backup image of Junos to have a consistent primary and backup image.

If you had a case where you had to abort the ICU process you will need to run request system software abort in-service-upgrade on the primary node. It is important to note, if you do use the abort command, you will put the cluster into an inconsistent state, where the secondary node will be running a newer version of Junos to the Primary node. To recover the cluster into a consistent state you will need to do the following all on the secondary node:

Recovering from an Inconsistent State

1. You will need to abort the upgrade: request system software abort in-service-upgrade
2. Rollback to the older version of Junos, that will be on the primary node request system software rollback node {node-id}
3. Perform a reboot of the node request system reboot

**UPDATE 29/4/2015**
Lucky enough, as I was finishing up this series of posts, my colleague had finished working on the SRX1400 we have in our lab! So I was able to run testing on doing ISSU upgrade on High End SRX Series device 😀 Happy Days!!!

SRX1400 testing differences

1. The SRX1400 doesn’t have any routing protocols, I will not need to configure graceful restart.
2. I will be upgrading from 12.1X44-D40.2 to 12.1X46-D10.2
3. The topology will be the same, however the IP addressing will be different. Trust will be 192.168.13.0/24 and Untrust will be 172.31.13.0/24

Pre-Upgrade Checks ISSU

Junos VersionDowngrade Method?RoutingRedundancy GroupsRedundancy Group 0

You will need to check to see, if the version of Junos code supports ISSU. This can be checked by running show version on both Nodes. You will need to be using Junos version 9.6 and later

ISSU DOES NOT support firmware downgrade!

Juniper recommend that a graceful restart for routing protocols be enabled Before starting an ISSU

Manually failing over all redundancy groups to one active only (For my example, as I have a active/backup setup, you won’t need to change anything. However, if you have active/active setup, you will need to change you configuration changes)

Once the upgrade has been completed you will need to Manual Failover Redundancy Group 0 back to Node0 (see Failover on SRX cluster pt1)

To start the upgrade, firstly all the redundancy groups need to fail over to one active node. As I have an active/backup setup, all my redundancy groups are on node0

{primary:node0}
[email protected]_be-rtr0-h3> show chassis cluster status        
Cluster ID: 1 
Node                  Priority          Status    Preempt  Manual failover

Redundancy group: 0 , Failover count: 3
    node0                   100         primary        no       no  
    node1                   99          secondary      no       no  

Redundancy group: 1 , Failover count: 5
    node0                   100         primary        yes      no  
    node1                   99          secondary      yes      no

To be the upgrade process, we need to run request system software in-service-upgrade /path/to/package reboot

Important note

Unlike with the ICU upgrade process, you have to enter the option reboot to confirm that you want a reboot after. If you don’t use the option reboot, the command will fail. This only applies to the High End SRX devices, SRX1400, SRX3400, SRX3600, SRX5600 and SRX5800.

ISSU Console observations

Patience neededNode1 FailoverEnd Host View Point

It does take quite a while from this point before more output will come from the console on node0, so you will need to be patience.

Validation succeeded
failover all RG 1+ groups to node 0 
Initiated manual failover for all redundancy-groups to node0
Redundancy-groups-0 will not failover and the primaryship remains unchanged.
ISSU: Preparing Backup RE
Pushing bundle to node1

Once Node1 is up and you see the output below

ISSU: Backup RE Prepare Done
Waiting for node1 to reboot.
node1 booted up.
Waiting for node1 to become secondary
node1 became secondary.
Waiting for node1 to be ready for failover
ISSU: Preparing Daemons

It takes around 5-10mins before you see anymore output to say the upgrade process is still going on! Again you will need to be patient as this does take its time!

Secondary node1 ready for failover.
{.......}
Failing over all redundancy-groups to node1
ISSU: Preparing for Switchover
Initiated failover for all the redundancy groups to node1
Waiting for node1 take over all redundancy groups

From hitting enter to having both firewalls upgraded it had taken 30:18min. The rolling ping between trust <--> untrust shows that they was no packet-loss and only 2 packets out of 3639 transmitted weren’t received. (As like before, unfortunately I was unable to get live flow session information)

root> ping 172.31.13.2 routing-instance trust 
--- 172.31.13.2 ping statistics ---
1818 packets transmitted, 1817 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.769/3.080/44.226/3.536 ms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
root> ping 192.168.13.2 routing-instance untrust 
--- 192.168.13.2 ping statistics ---
1821 packets transmitted, 1820 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.831/3.071/44.524/3.244 ms

To verify that the upgrade has been successful, we can run the commands show version

{secondary:node0}
[email protected]_be-rtr0-h3> show version 
node0:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hostname: lab_be-rtr0-h3
Model: srx1400
JUNOS Software Release [12.1X46-D10.2]

node1:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hostname: lab_be-rtr0-i3
Model: srx1400
JUNOS Software Release [12.1X46-D10.2]

And show chassis cluster status, to see that chassis status is as expected

{secondary:node0}
[email protected]_be-rtr0-h3> show chassis cluster status 
Cluster ID: 1 
Node                  Priority          Status    Preempt  Manual failover

Redundancy group: 0 , Failover count: 0
    node0                   100         secondary      no       no  
    node1                   99          primary        no       no  

Redundancy group: 1 , Failover count: 1
    node0                   100         primary        yes      no  
    node1                   99          secondary      yes      no

Unexpected output

During the reboot and manual failover of redundancy group 0 on Node0, I had got the output below on my console terminal

Message from [email protected]_be-rtr0-h3 at Apr 29 12:26:40  ...
lab_be-rtr0-h3 node0.fpc1.pic0 PFEMAN: Shutting down , PFEMAN Resync aborted! No peer info on reconnect or master rebooted?  

Message from [email protected]_be-rtr0-h3 at Apr 29 12:26:40  ...
lab_be-rtr0-h3 node0.cpp0 RDP: Remote side closed connection: rdp.(17825794:13321).(serverRouter:chassis)

[email protected]_be-rtr0-i3> Apr 29 12:27:04 init: can not access /usr/sbin/ipmid: No such file or directory

Message from [email protected]_be-rtr0-i3 at Apr 29 12:27:05  ...
lab_be-rtr0-i3 node1.cpp0 RDP: Remote side closed connection: rdp.(34603010:33793).(serverRouter:pfe) 

Message from [email protected]_be-rtr0-i3 at Apr 29 12:27:05  ...
lab_be-rtr0-i3 node1.cpp0 RDP: Remote side closed connection: rdp.(34603010:33792).(serverRouter:chassis) 

Message from [email protected]_be-rtr0-i3 at Apr 29 12:27:17  ...
lab_be-rtr0-i3 node1.cpp0 RDP: Remote side reset connection: rdp.(34603010:33794).(primaryRouter:1008) 

Message from [email protected]_be-rtr0-i3 at Apr 29 12:27:18  ...
lab_be-rtr0-i3 node1.cpp0 RDP: Remote side reset connection: rdp.(34603010:33795).(primaryRouter:1007)

I had raised this with Juniper and they sent this article. The article confirms that the error messages are expected if you are connected via the console or fxp0 interface. “The above mentioned messages, which are generated on the console session, states that the routing-engine [control plane(RG0)] has become active on the other node….These messages are due to the following syslog user configuration: system syslog user *.

You can stop this error by deactivating system syslog user *.

Note: It is recommended by Juniper for you keep the ‘syslog user (‘any emergency’)’ configuration and ignore these informational messages, as they might show certain useful information to the user.

Phew that was a lot of work and quite a bit to take in there!! Time for a break, (a drink or 6 lol)

My next post will be the last post in the SRX Chassis Cluster Series (sad times 🙁 ). It will be nice simple one on how to disable chassis cluster!

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Keeran Marquis

Network Engineer

Keeran Marquis is a Network Engineer. His main goal is to learn everything within the Networking field, pick up a little bit of scripting, be a poor man sysadmin and share whatever he knows! All Posts are his own views, opinions and experiences, no guarantees they will work for you but point you in the right direction 🙂

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4 thoughts on “Upgrading a SRX Chassis Cluster”

adam January 11, 2016 at 00:12

hi

” request system reboot node all ”
this command in not available in SRX 550

request system reboot ?
Possible completions:
Execute this command
at Time at which to perform the operation
in Number of minutes to delay before operation
media Boot media for next boot
message Message to display to all users
| Pipe through a command

no option given for node

regards
adam

Reply »
1. Keeran Marquis Post AuthorJanuary 11, 2016 at 01:03
  hi adam
  
  Do you have a cluster configured? As you would only see the “node all” statements when you have cluster. A quick check on a standalone SRX220 shows the same output as youre getting:
```
[email protected]> request system reboot ?
Possible completions:
  < [Enter]>            Execute this command
  at                   Time at which to perform the operation
  in                   Number of minutes to delay before operation
  media                Boot media for next boot
  message              Message to display to all users
  |                    Pipe through a command
```
  Even without using “node all” statement if you run request system reboot it should reboot both members as well.
  
  Let me know if this helps
  
  Cheers
  
  Keeran
  Reply »
Jhon Bedoya October 27, 2016 at 03:17

Hi Keeran,

I need to update two SRX 220h in cluster, but when I tried to copy junos version from Node0 to Node1, the imagen was corrupted, I used the following command in start shell mode:

rcp -T /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.3X48-D30.7-domestic.tgz node0:/var/tmp

I was reading about it, I mean the best practice but it was not possible…

after that I tried with the following..

L> file copy /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.1X47-D10.4-domestic.tgz node1:/var/tmp/
ssh: Could not resolve hostname node1: hostname nor servname provided, or not known
lost connection
error: put-file failed
error: could not send local copy of file

I tried with the following command also in star shell mode:

rcp /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.1X47-D10.4-domestic.tgz node1: /var/tmp/
cp: /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.1X47-D10.4-domestic.tgz and /var/tmp/junos-srxsme-12.1X47-D10.4-domestic.tgz are identical (not copied).

I’m not sure where says ” node1″ is node 1 or the Hostname of SRX.. maybe this is my fault..

I read your post , I will try with this command
request system software in-service-upgrade /path/to/package no-sync…
Maybe do you know any suggestions?

Many thanks

Reply »
Luv November 21, 2016 at 14:57

Hi Keeran,

We have a SRX1400 cluster running on JUNOS Software Release [12.3X48-D35.7]. I was running some Failover test cases. In one of the cases, when we power off primary node, the failover works fine but, after powering on the primary node, few minutes later (6 minutes to be precise), the traffic stops between the zones for almost 10 minutes and then cluster comes back to normal operation.

I also tried removing the “preempt” parameter but, results were same. Please let me know how to eliminate this downtime.

Regards

Reply »