Upgrading a Cisco ASA firmware in CLI

I decided to write up the steps so I could always refer back to this if I get hit in the head really hard and forget, which is very likely to happen. Remember to always read the release notes of the firmware you are installing.

In this case I have Cisco ASA 5505 running newer 9.X firmware, and just want both the ASA and ASDM images to be the latest suggested. In this scenario I am using TFTP64 to copy the files over but if I had a Flash drive handy I would have went that route.

First I downloaded the newest images from Cisco, both for the ASDM and the ASA firmware.

Then I moved those over to my TFTP server directory. On the ASA I will run these commands to copy the files to flash, then set options to boot to those images.

VIP-ASA# copy tftp flash
Address or name of remote host: 192.168.19.10
Source filename: asa917-12-k8.bin
Destination filename:asa917-12-k8.bin

Accessing tftp://192.168.19.10/asa917-12-k8.bin…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                                                                           !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
26709020 bytes copied in 33.860 secs (809364 bytes/sec)

Now to copy over the ASDM image

VIP-ASA# copy tftp: flash
Address or name of remote host: 192.168.19.10
Source filename: asdm-771.bin
Destination filename: asdm-771.bin
Accessing tftp://192.168.19.10/asdm-771.bin…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
26709020 bytes copied in 33.860 secs (809364 bytes/sec)

Great, our images are on the flash, now we need to set our boot variables.

VIP-ASA(config)# boot system flash:/asa917-12-k8.bin
INFO: Converting flash:/asa917-12-k8.bin to disk0:/asa917-12-k8.bin

Remove the old boot variable

VIP-ASA# show boot

BOOT variable = disk0:/asa917-12-k8.bin
Current BOOT variable = disk0:/asa917-12-k8.bin;disk0:/asa821-k8.bin
CONFIG_FILE variable =
Current CONFIG_FILE variable =
VIP-ASA# config t
VIP-ASA(config)# no boot system disk0:/asa821-k8.bin
VIP-ASA(config)# show boot

BOOT variable = disk0:/asa917-12-k8.bin
Current BOOT variable = disk0:/asa917-12-k8.bin
CONFIG_FILE variable =
Current CONFIG_FILE variable =
VIP-ASA(config)#

Set your ASDM image to the new one, and then check your ASDM boot image

config t
VIP-ASA(config)# asdm image disk0:/asdm-771.bin

VIP-ASA# show asdm image
Device Manager image file, disk0:/asdm-771.bin

Now save config, and reboot – That’s it!  Reading the release notes is super important to know what has changed, and if there is a certain firmware you need to be at before upgrading. In this example I upgraded to 9.1.7 and ASDM 7.7.1. If you were upgrading VIA USB it is basically the same config, except replace tftp with usb.

 

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